t Jim simply grinned
and asked him whether he allowed to sing his complaint to the police.
Wound up by saying that, even though Thorn had rounded on him, old Jim
was a square man, and he proposed to divide even.

Thorn was simply in the fix of the fellow between the bull and the
bulldog--he had a choice, but it was only whether he would rather be
gored or bitten, so he took the ten thousand, and that night Jim faded
away on a west-bound Pullman, smoking two-bit cigars and keeping the
porter busy standing by with a cork-screw. Thorn took his story and
the ten thousand back to his uncle in the East, and after a pretty
solemn interview with the old man, he went around and paid Castle in
full and resumed his perch on top of the high stool he'd left a few
years before. He never got as far as explaining to the girl in person,
because Castle told him that while he didn't doubt his honesty, he was
afraid he was too easy a mark to succeed in Wall Street. Yet Thorn did
work up slowly in his uncle's office, and he's now in charge of the
department that looks after the investments of widows and orphans, for
he is so blamed conservative that they can't use him in any part of
the business where it's necessary to take chances.

I simply speak of Thorn as an example of why I think you should have a
cool head before you finally buy the Lulu with my money. After all, it
seems rather foolish to pay railroad fares to the West and back for
the sake of getting stuck when there are such superior facilities for
that right here in the East.

Your affectionate father,

JOHN GRAHAM.

No. 14

From John Graham, at the Omaha branch of Graham & Company, to his son,
Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. The old man has been
advised by wire of the arrival of a prospective partner, and that the
mother, the son, and the business are all doing well.

XIV

OMAHA, October 6, 1900.

_Dear Pierrepont_: I'm so blame glad it's a boy that I'm getting over
feeling sorry it ain't a girl, and I'm almost reconciled to it's not
being twins. Twelve pounds, bully! maybe that doesn't keep up the
Graham reputation for giving good weight! But I'm coming home on the
run to heft him myself, because I never knew a fellow who wouldn't lie
a little about the weight of number one, and then, when you led him up
to the hay scales, claim that it's a well-known scientific principle
that children shrink during the first week like a ham in smoke.
Allowin