on't you know you are?"

I did not feel called upon to commit myself; and we smoked on for some
time in silence.

"It strikes me, Jim," said I, at last, "that you've done all the
cross-examination, and that it is time to listen to your report. How
about you and your conduct?"

"As for my conduct," was the prompt answer, "it's away up in the
neighborhood of G. I've managed to hold the confounded world up for a
living, ever since I left Pleasant Valley Township. Some of the time the
picking has been better than at others; but my periods of starvation
have been brief. By practicing on the 'Veterinarians' Guide' and other
similar fakes, I learned how to talk to people so as to make them
believe what I said about things, with the result, usually, of wooing
the shrinking and cloistered dollar from its lair. When a fellow gets
this trick down fine, he can always find a market for his services. I
handled hotel registers, city directories, and like literature,
including county histories--"

"Sh-h-h!" said I, "somebody might hear you."

"--and at last, after a conference with my present employers, the error
of my way presented itself to me, and I felt called to a higher and
holier profession. I yielded to my good angel, turned my better nature
loose, and became a missionary."

"A what!" I exclaimed.

"A missionary," he responded soberly. "That is, you understand, not one
of these theological, India's-coral-strand guys; but one who goes about
the United States of America in a modest and unassuming way, doing good
so far as in him lies."

"I see," said I, punning horribly, "'in him lies.'"

"Eh?... Yes. Have another cigar. Well, now, you can't defend this
foreign-mission business to me for a minute. The hills, right in this
vicinity, are even now white to the harvest. Folks here want the light
just as bad as the foreign heathen; and so I took up my burden, and went
out to disseminate truth, as the soliciting agent of the Frugality and
Indemnity Life Association, which presented itself to me as the capacity
in which I could best combine repentance with its fruits."

"I perceive," said I.

"Perfectly plain, isn't it, to the seeing eye?" he went on. "You see it
was like this: Charley Harper and I had been together in the Garden City
Land Company, years ago, during the boom--by the way, I didn't mention
that in my report, did I? Well, of course, that company went up just as
they all did, and neither Charley nor I got to b