all right. I'll make it thirty
dollars and a ticket of the raffle for my watch to-morrow."

"Done," said Mr. Middleton, and he proceeded to draw up a contract
binding him to stay away from the masquerade for a consideration of
thirty dollars.

It was not the least remarkable part of his adventure that he did not
meet Gustaf Kleiner in his damaged suit and for a consideration of
fifty dollars, lend him the magnificent Oriental costume. He did not
see Gustaf Kleiner at all, nor did he win the watch in the raffle and
the chronicler hopes that the setting down of these facts will not
cause the readers to doubt his veracity, for he is aware that usually
these things are ordered differently.

Having kept the Oriental costume for several days and seeing no
prospect of ever wearing it, and his small closet having become
crowded by the presence of a new twenty-dollar suit which he purchased
with part of his gains, he presented it to the young lady in Englewood
previously mentioned, who reduced the ruby red jacket to a beautiful
bolero jacket, made a table throw of the sash, and after much
hesitation seized the exceedingly baggy trousers--which were made with
but one seam--and ripping them up, did, with a certain degree of
confusion, fashion them into two lovely shirt waists. But she did not
wear them in the presence of Mr. Middleton and did not even mention
them to him. Nor did Mr. Middleton allude to any of these transactions
when on the appointed day and hour he again sat in the presence of the
urbane prince of the tribe of Al-Yam. Handing him a bowl of delicately
flavored sherbet, Achmed began to narrate The Adventure of William
Hicks.

_The Adventure of William Hicks._

Young William Hicks was a native of the village of Bensonville, in the
southern part of Illinois. Having, at the age of twenty, graduated at
the head of a class of six in the village school, his father thought
to reward him for his diligence in study by a short trip to the city
of Chicago, which metropolis William had never beheld. Addressing him
in a discourse which, while not long, abounded in valuable advice, Mr.
Hicks presented his son with a sum of money sufficient for a stay of a
week, provided it were not expended imprudently.

One evening, William was walking along Wabash Avenue, feeling somewhat
lonely as he soberly reflected that not one in all that vast multitude
cared anything about him, when he heard himself accosted in a most
ch