," says the lawyer man, "you act like you was making your
last will and testament, and getting ready to close up business."

He laughs then; but Old Man Wright don't laugh.

"I am," says he. "It's time; I've been dead more'n a week now."

They made out some papers about houses and lots and stocks and things,
how they was to be distributed in case of the deemise of the said John
William Wright. Then after a while they come around to the papers in
the big case we had against Old Man Wisner for the last deferred payment
on the Circle Arrow trade that hadn't been paid yet and wouldn't be. Old
Man Wright sets back and looks at them papers right ca'm.

"I know what Old Man Wisner's been East for," says he. "He couldn't
raise that much money--nigh on a million dollars--on anything as wildcat
as strawberries and cream in Wyoming; not these times. Even the banks is
wise onto that now. Stenographers and clerks and ministers and doctors
don't bite like they used to no more; it's harder to find people that's
willing to pay in so much a month for a bungalow in Florida or Wyoming
while they set home engaged in light and genteel employment. Every oncet
in a while the American people gets took with a spasum of a little horse
sense. There's places for peaches and cream, and there's places for
cows, but you don't want to get your wires crossed.

"So," says he, "I know I've got Old Man Wisner broke right now. He's
been over to Holland to see if he couldn't form a Dutch syndicate for to
unload on. The Dutch is the last resort of the American landboomer. When
you can't sell out a bunch of greasewood land for a pineapple colony to
no one else, go over and sell it to them Dutch; they're easy. I seen a
man one time sell almost all the north end of New Mexico to a Dutch
syndicate for a coffee plantation. It was good for cows; but he had
pictures of steamboats and canals and things out there in the
sagebrush--you've got to have a canal on your blueprint if you sell
anything to them Holland people. Like enough Old Man Wisner had pictures
of canals. But he couldn't sell this property none, following on the war
over there; they're busy with other things.

"The result is he's come back here broke. He knows the banks has got
wise and they ain't going to back him no further than they have. They're
too busy lending a billion dollars or so to the folks over in Europe to
help blow up some steamboats for us.

"Therefore," says he, jarring the paper