orking for myself, and Charley kicked--said the directors
wouldn't consent, and that such a salary list would be a black eye for
the Frugality and Indemnity if it showed up in its statements. So I
quit. I am loan agent for the company here, which gives me a visible
means of support, and keeps me from being vagged. But, in confidence, I
want to tell you that my main graft here is the putting in operation of
my boom-hatching scheme. Come out, and I'll enroll you as a member of
the band once more; for this is the coral atoll for me. You ought to get
out of that stagnant pond of yours, and come where the natatory medium
is fresh, clean, and thickly peopled with suckers, and a new run of 'em
coming on right soon. In other words, get into the swim."

After reading this letter and considering it as a whole, I was so much
impressed by it that Lattimore was added to the list of places I meant
to visit, on a tour I had planned for myself.

In the West, all roads run to or from Chicago. It is nearer to almost
any place by the way of Chicago than by any other route: so Alice and I
went to the city by the lake, as the beginning of our prospecting tour.
I took her to the art gallery and showed her just where my two lovers
had stood,--telling her the story for the first time. Then she wanted to
eat a supper at Auriccio's; and after the play we went there, and I was
forced to describe the whole scene over again.

"Didn't she see you at all?" she asked.

"Not at all," said I.

"You are a good boy," said my wife, judging me by one act which she
approved. "Kiss me."

This occurred after we reached our lodgings. I suggested as a change of
subject that my next day's engagements took me to the Stock Yards, and I
assumed that she would scarcely wish to accompany me.

"I think I prefer the stores," said she, "and the pictures. Maybe _I_
shall have an adventure."

At the big Exchange Building, I found that the acquaintance whom I
sought was absent from his office, and I roamed up and down the
corridors in search of him. As usual the gathering here was intensely
Western. There were bronzed cattlemen from every range from Amarillo to
the Belle Fourche, sturdy buyers of swine from Iowa and Illinois,
sombreroed sheepmen from New Mexico, and vikingesque Swedes from North
Dakota. Men there were wearing thousand-dollar diamonds in red flannel
shirts, solid gold watch-chains made to imitate bridle-bits, and heavy
golden bullocks sliding on hor