k. I'm
sick and tired of the automobile game and I'm gonna incorporate myself
as Alex Hanley, S. D."

"What's the S. D. for?" I asks. "South Dakota?"

"No--Success Developer!" he says. "I ain't selfish--I put myself over
and now I'm gonna put 'em _all_ over! At the same time, as I say, I'll
charge a reasonable sum for my work. Why this is bigger business than
Wall Street, makin' men instead of breakin' 'em and--"

"Stop talkin' for a second, Alex," I says, "and get a new sensation! I
got an idea of what that reasonable charge of yours will be, that's
provided your scheme works, which it prob'ly won't. If you cause a guy
to make himself twenty dollars, your fee won't exceed a hundred and
fifty! You're as liberal with money as Grant's Tomb is with advice.
But if you're on the level with this, I'll bet you a thousand bucks,
American money, to five hundred of the same coinage, that you'll flop
like a seal on your first try. They's only one thing you gotta do!"

"What is it?" he asks. He was thinkin' of them thousand bucks and his
eyes sparkled till you could of hocked 'em anywheres for five hundred
apiece.

"You gotta let _me_ pick the first victim!" I says.

"Not to change the subject," remarks the wife to me, "if you got a
thousand dollars for purposes of bettin', they's a ring in Tiffany's
window which will come here to-morrow escorted by a C.O.D. bill. The
price and one thousand dollars is the same."

"Do you think I print this money myself?" I hollers.

"I would of married you long ago if I did!" she says, smilin' sweetly.

"Think of a man mean enough to argue about money with his lovin' wife!"
sneers Alex.

"If _you_ was married," I says, "your wife would think they had stopped
the circulation of all money, with the exception of nickels!"

"Ha! Ha!" he sneers, like a movie villain. "I just give Eve Rossiter
an engagement ring that can be _pawned_ for eight hundred men!"

"I think you're four flushin'," I hollers, gettin' warmed up, "but you
can't hang nothin' on me! You go down to Tiffany's, honey," I tells
the wife, "and get that thousand buck ring--but put up a battle for it
at $750!"

The wife pulls her million-dollar smile and gimme a chaste salute, as
the guy says, on the forehead. Then she opens her sea-goin' handbag
and takes somethin' out.

"Here it is, dear!" she says, with the giggle that made me a married
man, "I knowed you'd fall, so I got it this morning! It was only $987.