tricks we discovered
yesterday. Not a soul in the place could see through them, and I made
about two hundred dollars before I left. I then had lunch."

"Why you had lunch with us!" Hamar laughed.

"Well, can't I have as many lunches as I like?" Curtis replied. "I had
lunch, I say, at a place in Market Street, and there I read in a paper
that Peters & Pervis, the tin food people, were offering a prize of
three thousand dollars for a solution to a puzzle contained on the
inside cover of one of their tins. I immediately determined to enter
for it. I bought a tin and saw through the puzzle at once. Bribing a
policeman to go with me to see fair play, off I set to Peters &
Pervis'.

"'I want to see your boss,' I said to the first clerk I saw.

"'Which of them?' the clerk grunted, his cheeks turning white at the
sight of the policeman.

"'Either will do,' I replied, 'Peters or Pervis. Trot 'em up, time is
precious.'

"Away he went, but in a couple of minutes was back again, looking
scared, 'They're both engaged,' he says.

"'Then they'll have to break it off,' I responded, 'and mighty quick.
I'm here to talk with them, so get a move on you again and give that
message.'

"If it hadn't been for the policeman I don't think he would have gone,
but the policeman backed me up, and the clerk hurried off again; and
in the end the bosses decided they had better see me. They looked
precious cross, I can assure you, but before I had done speaking they
looked crosser still.

"'You say you've done that puzzle,'--they shouted--'the puzzle that
has stuck all the mathematical guns at Harvard and Yale--you--a
nonentity like you--begone, sir, don't waste our time with such humbug
as that.'

"'All right,' I said, 'give me some paper and a pen, and I'll prove
it.'

"'That's very reasonable,' the policeman chipped in, 'do the thing
fair and square--I'm here as a witness.'

"Well, with much grunting and grumbling they handed me paper and ink,
and in a trice the puzzle was done; and it appeared so easy that the
policeman clapped his hands and broke out into a loud guffaw. My eyes!
you should have seen how the faces of Pervis and Peters fell, and have
heard what they said. But it was no use swearing and cursing, the
thing was done, and there was the policeman to prove it.

"'We'll give you five hundred dollars,' they said, 'to clear out and
say no more about it.'

"'Five hundred dollars when you've advertised three thousand,' I
c