red. It
would cut out the trick of reshipping at sea from some fishing craft or
small boat. The reports were encouraging enough in that respect. We had
the whole country as tight as a drum. But it was slender comfort when
the Treasury was raising the devil for the plates and we hadn't a clew
to them."

Walker stopped a moment. Then he went on:

"I felt like kicking the hobo when he got to me, he was so obviously the
extreme of all worthless creatures, with that apologetic, confidential
manner which seems to be an abominable attendant on human degeneracy.
One may put up with it for a little while, but it presently becomes
intolerable.

"'Governor,' he began, when he'd shuffled up, 'you won't git mad if I
say a little somethin'?

"'Go on and say it,' I said.

"The expression on his dirty unshaved face became, if possible, more
foolish.

"'Well, then, Governor, askin' your pardon, you ain't Mr. Henry P.
Johnson, from Erie; you're the Chief of the United States Secret
Service, from Washington.'"

Walker moved in his chair.

"That made me ugly," he went on, "the assurance of the creature and my
unspeakable carelessness in permitting the official letters brought
to me on the day before by the post-office messenger to be seen. In my
relaxation I had forgotten the eye of the chair attendant. I took the
cigar out of my teeth and looked at him.

"'And I'll say a little something myself!' I could hardly keep my foot
clear of him. 'When you got sober this morning and remembered who I was,
you took a turn up round the post office to make sure of it, and while
you were in there you saw the notice of the reward for the stolen bond
plates. That gave you the notion with which you pieced out your fairy
story about how you got the dollar tip. Having discovered my identity
through a piece of damned carelessness on my part, and having seen the
postal notice of the reward, you undertook to enlarge your little game.
That's the reason you wouldn't take fifty cents. It was your notion in
the beginning to make a touch for a tip. And it would have worked. But
now you can't get a damned cent out of me.' Then I threw a little brush
into him: 'I'd have stood a touch for your finding the fake tanner,
because there isn't any such person.'

"I intended to put the hobo out of business," Walker went on, "but the
effect of my words on him were even more startling than I anticipated.
His jaw dropped and he looked at me in astonishment.

"'N