a barrel of black-eyed peas and as
loose as the wrapper of a two-for-fiver. I don't mind telling you
that I was not touring among the Antipodes when the burglar-proof
safe of the Farmers' National Bank of Butterville, Ia., flew open
some moonless nights ago to the tune of $16,000."

"Aren't you afraid," asked Vuyning, "that I'll call a cop and hand
you over?"

"You tell me," said Emerson, coolly, "why I didn't keep them."

He laid Vuyning's pocketbook and watch--the Vuyning 100-year-old
family watch--on the table.

"Man," said Vuyning, revelling, "did you ever hear the tale Kirk
tells about the six-pound trout and the old fisherman?"

"Seems not," said Emerson, politely. "I'd like to."

"But you won't," said Vuyning. "I've heard it scores of times. That's
why I won't tell you. I was just thinking how much better this is
than a club. Now, shall we go to my tailor?"

"Boys, and elderly gents," said Vuyning, five days later at his club,
standing up against the window where his coterie was gathered, and
keeping out the breeze, "a friend of mine from the West will dine at
our table this evening."

"Will he ask if we have heard the latest from Denver?" said a member,
squirming in his chair.

"Will he mention the new twenty-three-story Masonic Temple, in
Quincy, Ill.?" inquired another, dropping his nose-glasses.

"Will he spring one of those Western Mississippi River catfish
stories, in which they use yearling calves for bait?" demanded Kirk,
fiercely.

"Be comforted," said Vuyning. "He has none of the little vices. He is
a burglar and safe-blower, and a pal of mine."

"Oh, Mary Ann!" said they. "Must you always adorn every statement
with your alleged humor?"

It came to pass that at eight in the evening a calm, smooth,
brilliant, affable man sat at Vuyning's right hand during dinner.
And when the ones who pass their lives in city streets spoke of
skyscrapers or of the little Czar on his far, frozen throne, or
of insignificant fish from inconsequential streams, this big,
deep-chested man, faultlessly clothed, and eyed like an Emperor,
disposed of their Lilliputian chatter with a wink of his eyelash.

And then he painted for them with hard, broad strokes a marvellous
lingual panorama of the West. He stacked snow-topped mountains on the
table, freezing the hot dishes of the waiting diners. With a wave of
his hand he swept the clubhouse into a pine-crowned gorge, turning
the waiters into a grim posse, and