n it--millions."

"Billions in it--billions; that's what you mean. Why, look here; the
thing is so close at hand, so imminent, so absolutely immediate, that if
a man were to come to me now and say, Colonel, I am a little short, and
if you could lend me a couple of billion dollars for--come in!"

This in answer to a knock. An energetic looking man bustled in with a
big pocket-book in his hand, took a paper from it and presented it, with
the curt remark:

"Seventeenth and last call--you want to out with that three dollars and
forty cents this time without fail, Colonel Mulberry Sellers."

The Colonel began to slap this pocket and that one, and feel here and
there and everywhere, muttering:

"What have I done with that wallet?--let me see--um--not here, not there
--Oh, I must have left it in the kitchen; I'll just run and--"

"No you won't--you'll stay right where you are. And you're going to
disgorge, too--this time."

Washington innocently offered to go and look. When he was gone the
Colonel said:

"The fact is, I've got to throw myself on your indulgence just this once
more, Suggs; you see the remittances I was expecting--"

"Hang the remittances--it's too stale--it won't answer. Come!"

The Colonel glanced about him in despair. Then his face lighted; he ran
to the wall and began to dust off a peculiarly atrocious chromo with his
handkerchief. Then he brought it reverently, offered it to the
collector, averted his face and said:

"Take it, but don't let me see it go. It's the sole remaining Rembrandt
that--"

"Rembrandt be damned, it's a chromo."

"Oh, don't speak of it so, I beg you. It's the only really great
original, the only supreme example of that mighty school of art which--"

"Art! It's the sickest looking thing I--"

The colonel was already bringing another horror and tenderly dusting it.

"Take this one too--the gem of my collection--the only genuine Fra
Angelico that--"

"Illuminated liver-pad, that's what it is. Give it here--good day--
people will think I've robbed a' nigger barber-shop."

As he slammed the door behind him the Colonel shouted with an anguished
accent--

"Do please cover them up--don't let the damp get at them. The delicate
tints in the Angelico--"

But the man was gone.

Washington re-appeared and said he had looked everywhere, and so had Mrs.
Sellers and the servants, but in vain; and went on to say he wished he
could get his eye on a certain man abou