"I've grabbed off the whole bag of tricks!" he cried. "Look at 'em! We've not seen so much of the real stuff in six months.

"Ten-twenty-thirty-forty-fifty——————

gad!-sixty-seventy!"

By

"What are they?" asked Mabel curiously. "Some bonds-what?"

"Say,

"I should say so!" he retorted gaily. girlie, I'll give you the swellest meal of your young life to-night! Chicago Water Front and Terminal, Great Lakes and Canadian Southern, Mohawk and Housatonic, Bluff Creek and Iowa Central. 'Oh, Mabel!"

It was at just about this period of the celebration that Mr. Tutt entered the outer office and sent in his name; and as Mr. Badger was at the height of his good humor he condescended to see him.

"I have called," said Mr. Tutt, "in regard to the bonds belonging to my client, Mrs. Effingham. I see you have them on the desk there in front of you. Unfortunately she has changed her mind. She has decided not to have you dispose of her securities."

Mr. Badger's expression instantly became hostile and defiant.

"It's too late!" he replied. "I have paid off her note and I am going to carry out the rest of the arrangement."

"Oh," said Mr. Tutt, "so you are going to sell

all her securities and put the proceeds into your bogus oil company-whether she wishes it or not? If you do the district attorney will get after you."

"I stand on my rights," snarled Badger. "Anyhow I can sell enough of the securities to pay myself back my ten thousand dollars."

"And then you'll steal the rest?" inquired Mr. Tutt. "Be careful, my dear sir! Remember there is such a thing as equity, and such a place as Sing Sing."

Badger gave a cynical laugh.

"You're too late, my friend! I've got a written order—a written order-from your client, as you call her. She can't go back on it now. I've got the bonds and I'm going to dispose of them."

"Very well," said Mr. Tutt tolerantly. "You can do as you see fit. But"—and he produced ten genuine one-thousand-dollar bills and exhibited them to Mr. Badger at a safe distance-"I now on behalf of Mrs. Effingham make you a legal tender of the ten thousand dollars you have just paid out to cancel her note, and I demand the return of the securities. Incidentally I beg to inform you that they are not worth the paper they are printed on.”

"Indeed!" sneered Badger. "Well, my dear old friend, you might have saved yourself the trouble of coming round here. You and your cli

ent can go straight to hell.

You can keep the

money; I'll keep the bonds. See?"

Mr. Tutt sighed and shook his head hopelessly. Then he put the bills back into his pocket and started slowly for the door.

"You absolutely and finally decline to give up the securities?" he asked plaintively.

"Absolutely and finally?" mocked Mr. Badger with a sweeping bow.

"Dear! Dear !" almost moaned Mr. Tutt. "I'd heard of you a great many times but I never realized before what an unscrupulous man you were! Anyhow, I'm glad to have had a look at you. By the way, if you take the trouble to dig through all that junk you'll find the certificate of stock in the Great Jehoshaphat Oil Company you used to flim flam Mrs. Effingham with out of her ten thousand dollars. Maybe you can use it on someone else! Anyhow, she's about two thousand dollars to the good. It isn't every widow who can get twenty per cent and then get her money back in full."

The Hepplewhite Tramp

"No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed— nor will we go upon or send upon him-save by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land." -MAGNA CHARTA, Sec. 39.

'Somebody has been lying in my bed-and here she is,' cried the Little, Small, Wee Bear, in his little, small, wee voice." -THE THREE BEARS.

O

NE of the nicest men in New York was Mr.

John De Puyster Hepplewhite. The chief reason for his niceness was his entire satisfaction with himself and the padded world in which he 'dwelt, where he was as protected from all shocking, rough or otherwise unpleasant things as a shrinking débutante from the coarse universe of fact. Being thus shielded from every annoyance and irritation by a host of sycophants he lived serenely in an atmosphere of unruffled calm, gazing down benignly and with a certain condescension from the

rarefied altitude of his Fifth Avenue windows, pleased with the prospect of life as it appeared to him to be and only slightly conscious of the vileness of his fellow man.

Certainly he was not conscious at all of the existence of the celebrated law firm of Tutt & Tutt. Such vulgar persons were not of his sphere. His own lawyers were gray-headed, dignified, rather smart attorneys who moved only in the best social circles and practised their profession with an air of elegance. When Mr. Hepplewhite needed advice he sent for them and they came, chatted a while in subdued easy accents, and went away-like cheerful undertakers. Nobody ever spoke in loud tones near Mr. Hepplewhite because Mr. Hepplewhite did not like anything loud-not even clothes. He was, as we have said, quite one of the nicest men in New York.

At the moment when Mrs. Witherspoon made her appearance he was sitting in his library reading a copy of "Sainte-Beuve" and waiting for Bibby, the butler, to announce tea. It was eight minutes to five and there was still eight minutes to wait; so Mr. Hepplewhite went on reading "SainteBeuve."

Then "Mrs. Witherspoon !" intoned Bibby, and Mr. Hepplewhite rose quickly, adjusted his eyeglass and came punctiliously forward.