s are as absurd as they are groundless, my dear boy.
We could cash checks for any reasonable sum in this caravanserai merely
on our appearance as men of education and property. Even in stolen
clothes you look like a capitalist."

Two men came into the garden and seated themselves at a table on the
other side of a screen of shrubbery. They ordered coffee and one of them
remarked upon the recent prevalence of crime in New England.

"A thief was shot at Bailey Harbor night before last and there seems to
be a band of crooks operating all along the coast."

"We need a better type of men in Congress," said the Governor in a loud
tone, with a wink at Archie. "There's a steady deterioration in the
quality of our representatives in both houses."

"You are right," Archie responded, remembering with a twinge of
conscience his congressman brother-in-law.

The Governor nodded to Archie to keep on talking, while he played the
role of eavesdropper.

"You oughtn't to have carried that cash up here," came in a low tone
from the hedge. "The old man is a fool or he wouldn't have suggested
such a thing."

"Well, he wrote that he was coming here to spend a week and in his
characteristic fashion said if I wanted his stock I could bring the
currency here and close the transaction. The Congdons are all a lot of
cranks, you know. This old curmudgeon carries a small fortune around
with him all the time, and never accepts a check in any transaction."

The Governor grew more eloquent in his attempt to convince Archie of the
decadence of American statesmanship, while their unseen neighbors,
feeling themselves secure, continued their discussion of the errand that
had brought them to Cornford.

"You're paying the old skunk a big price for his shares!"

"Well, I've got to to keep them out of hostile hands," said the second
voice irritably. "I don't like the idea of carrying yellowbacks around
in a satchel just to humor a lunatic. And he's had the nerve to write
that he won't be here until tomorrow!"

"But the cash--"

"Oh, it's all safe enough. No one knows but that I'm here just for a
rest."

"Let's stroll about a little," said the Governor. "We're not getting our
usual amount of exercise and there's a good bit of colonial history
tucked away in Cornford."

He led the way through the garden to the street, and bade Archie proceed
slowly to the post office while he walked toward the main entrance of
the inn.

Archie was buying stamp