yin' to make up my mind how to deliver this document to
the main stem and duck an ambulance ride afterwards, the directors'
meetin' breaks up. So I finds Old Hickory alone in his private office
and slips it casual on the pad in front of him.

"Here, what's this?" he snorts, callin' me back as he opens up the
sheet. "Eh? Dudley! Resigns, does he! What, that dried up, goat faced,
custard brained, old----Say, boy; ask him what the grizzly grindstones
he means by----"

"I did," says I, "and, if you want to know, he's quittin' because he's
too straight to cook up the books the way you told him."

"Cook up the books!" gasps Old Hickory, gettin' raspb'ry tinted in the
face and displayin' neck veins like a truck horse. "He's been welshing,
has he? Perhaps he'd like to turn State's witness? Well, by the great
sizzling skyrockets, if that's his trick, I'll give him enough of----"

"Excuse me, Mr. Ellins," I breaks in, "but you're slippin' your clutch.
Tricks! Why, he ain't even wise to what you want him to do it for. All
he knows is that it's crooked, and he renigs on a general proposition.
And, say, when a man's as straight as that, with the workhouse starin'
him in the face, he's too valuable to lose, ain't he?"

"Wha-a-at?" gurgles Old Hickory.

"Besides," says I, hurryin' the words to get 'em all out before any
violent scene breaks loose, "knowin' all he does about them Mutt & Mudd
checks, and with what he don't know about the case, it wouldn't be
hardly safe to have him roamin' the streets, would it? Now I leave it to
you."

Say, I was lookin' Old Hickory right in the eye, ready to dodge the
inkstand or anything else, while I was puttin' that over, and for a
minute I thought it was comin' sure. But while he can get as hot under
the collar as anyone I ever saw, and twice as quick, he don't go clear
off his nut any of the time.

"Young man," says he, calmin' down and motionin' me to a chair, "as
usual, you seem to be more or less well informed on this matter
yourself. Now let's have the rest of it."

And just like that, all of a sudden, it's batted up to me. So I lets it
come, with all the details about Uncle Dudley's frosty home life, and
the reformer son out West that still thinks father is makin' good. He
sits there and listens to every word too. Not that he comes in with the
sympathetic sigh, or shows signs of being troubled by mist in the eye
corners. He just throws in an occasional grunt now and then and drums