bought the tickets. He came back with me, and he's on the force now."




BURIED TREASURE


There are many kinds of fools. Now, will everybody please sit still
until they are called upon specifically to rise?

I had been every kind of fool except one. I had expended my
patrimony, pretended my matrimony, played poker, lawn-tennis, and
bucket-shops--parted soon with my money in many ways. But there remained
one rule of the wearer of cap and bells that I had not played. That was
the Seeker after Buried Treasure. To few does the delectable furor come.
But of all the would-be followers in the hoof-prints of King Midas none
has found a pursuit so rich in pleasurable promise.

But, going back from my theme a while--as lame pens must do--I was a
fool of the sentimental sort. I saw May Martha Mangum, and was hers.
She was eighteen, the color of the white ivory keys of a new piano,
beautiful, and possessed by the exquisite solemnity and pathetic
witchery of an unsophisticated angel doomed to live in a small, dull,
Texas prairie-town. She had a spirit and charm that could have enabled
her to pluck rubies like raspberries from the crown of Belgium or any
other sporty kingdom, but she did not know it, and I did not paint the
picture for her.

You see, I wanted May Martha Mangum for to have and to hold. I wanted