hat's the idea."

"Well, isn't that a new twist on the crippled industries of this
country?"

"No; that's our rule. Hurry up, please, and don't keep men waiting who
have money and know how to do business."

"Well, I don't want to obstruct business, of course, but suppose, for
instance, I get myself identified by a man I know and a man you know,
and a man who can leave his business and come here for the delirious joy
of identifying me, and you admit that I am the man I claim to be,
corresponding as to description, age, sex, etc., with the man I
advertise myself to be, how would it be about your ability to identify
yourself as the man you claim to be? I go all over Chicago, visiting all
the large pork-packing houses in search of a man I know, and who is
intimate with literary people like me, and finally we will say I find
one who knows me and who knows you, and whom you know, and who can leave
his leaf lard long enough to come here and identify me all right. Can
you identify yourself in such a way that when I put in my $2,000 you
will not loan it upon insufficient security as they did in Cincinnati
the other day, as soon as I go out of town?"

"Oh, we don't care especially whether you trade here or not, so that you
hurry up and let other people have a chance. Where you make a mistake is
in trying to rehearse a piece here instead of going out to Lincoln Park
or somewhere in a quiet part of the city. Our rules are that a man who
makes a deposit here must be identified."

"All right. Do you know Queen Victoria?"

"No, sir; I do not."

"Well, then, there is no use in disturbing her. Do you know any of the
other crowned heads?"

"No, sir."

"Well, then, do you know President Cleveland, or any of the Cabinet, or
the Senate or members of the House?"

"No."

"That's it, you see. I move in one set and you in another. What
respectable people do you know?"

[Illustration]

"I'll have to ask you to stand aside, I guess, and give that string of
people a chance. You have no right to take up my time in this way. The
rules of the bank are inflexible. We must know who you are, even before
we accept your deposit."

I then drew from my pocket a copy of the Sunday World, which contained a
voluptuous picture of myself. Removing my hat and making a court salaam
by letting out four additional joints in my lithe and versatile limbs, I
asked if any further identification would be necessary.

[Illustration]

Hastily closing