eved it of you," says I. "You don't stand to lose so much
either, by the way. Here! Wait until I write a voucher for twenty per
cent. of twelve thousand five hundred. His figures, you know. There! Now
you can collect from Judson and call for name Number Two."

CHAPTER III

PEEKING IN ON PEDDERS

Who started that dope about Heaven givin' us our relations but thanks be
we can pick friends to suit ourselves? Anyway, it's phony. Strikes me we
often have friends wished on us; sort of accumulate 'em by chance, as we
do appendicitis, or shingles, or lawsuits. And at best it's a matter of
who you meet most, and how.

Take J. Bayard Steele. Think I'd ever hunted him out and extended the
fraternal grip, or him me? Not if everyone else in the world was deaf
and dumb and had the itch! We're about as much alike in our tastes and
gen'ral run of ideas as Bill Taft and Bill Haywood; about as congenial
as our bull terrier and the chow dog next door. Yet here we are, him
hailin' me as Shorty, and me callin' him anything from J. B. to Old Top,
and confabbin' reg'lar most every day, as chummy as you please.

All on account of our bein' mixed up in carryin' out this batty will of
Pyramid Gordon's. First off I didn't think I'd have to see him more'n
once a month, and then only for a short session; but since he put
through that first deal and collected his twenty-four hundred
commission, he's been showin' up at the studio frequent, with next to no
excuse for comin'.

You remember how he drew Twombley-Crane as the first one that he had to
unload a kind and gen'rous act on, and how I made him give up the
picture that he'd gloated over so long? Well, J. Bayard can't seem to
get over the way that turned out. Here he'd been forced into doin'
something nice for a party he had a grudge against, has discovered that
Twombley-Crane ain't such a bad lot after all, and has been well paid
for it besides, out of money left by his old enemy.

"Rather a remarkable set of circumstances, eh, Shorty?" says he, tiltin'
back comf'table in one of my front office chairs and lightin' up a fresh
twenty-five-cent cigar. "An instance of virtue being rewarded on a cash
basis. Not only that, but I was royally entertained down at
Twombley-Crane's the other night, you know. I think too I interested him
in a little development scheme of mine."

"Jump off!" says I. "You're standin' on your foot. If you dream you can
slip any of your fake stock onto him, you'