ut discomfort. I am
thinking of packing up and starting back to-morrow, let the consequences
be what they may. I think I have been a victim quite long enough, and
have paid just about all a fool ought to pay for a vacation of five
weeks."

"Well, you know your own business best, of course, Mr. Tescheron. If you
really don't fear the publicity, why did you engage me at all? Why did
you go to any expense whatever? Of course, it is foolish, as you say, to
spend money to avoid that which you do not fear. Go back and take your
medicine; let your wife and daughter take theirs. Go back by all means;
start to-morrow. Don't delay."

That fellow Smith certainly knew enough about fishing for men to fill a
volume with pointers on the best lines, rods, and bait--artificial,
worms or minnows. He knew just what he could do with a man restrained by
fear, and filled with the idea that his money and superior business
judgment would enable him to gain his ends in every emergency. A poor
man is protected against many parasites by his lean purse. It gets back
to the saying, "A fool and his money are soon parted"; but what
impresses me at this turn of our narrative is the fact that the fool is
only interesting up to the point of the parting. After that he is
dropped from the plans of his pursuers. Notice of the failure of Mr.
Tescheron's business in the reports of the day would have removed him
from the realm of mystery to sure footing on the hard-pan of tough
luck.

Mr. Tescheron had in his haste begun to find fault before he knew just
what move to make. He realized that Smith read that fact in his manner
and peevish complaining. He felt the hook in his gills. Smith felt the
tug on the line. Perhaps at that interview he thought how like my advice
this sarcastic statement from Smith seemed. At times he felt like a
coward, and then encouraged himself to believe he was really a brave
man, _saving_ his loved ones from the blasting breath of scandal more
awful than any calamity that might overtake them.

Smith's shrewd little brain turned on cash. Gold dollars were the ball
bearings that eased its frictionless revolutions. Pine forests have
their charms, no doubt, for those misguided creatures who enjoy the
bracing ozone of the balsam-laden air. To Smith the pungent sap of the
evergreen tree was a poor substitute for the stimulating essence of
greenback, the cologne of greasy bills, and it would take a big pile of
them to make the room "stu