headpiece de Panama with his mysterious fluid that attracted dust and
dirt like a magnet.

"They say the Indians weave 'em under water," said I, for a leader.

"Don't you believe it," said Finch. "No Indian or white man could stay
under water that long. Say, do you pay much attention to politics? I see
in the paper something about a law they've passed called 'the law of
supply and demand.'"

I explained to him as well as I could that the reference was to a
politico-economical law, and not to a legal statute.

"I didn't know," said Finch. "I heard a good deal about it a year or so
ago, but in a one-sided way."

"Yes," said I, "political orators use it a great deal. In fact, they
never give it a rest. I suppose you heard some of those cart-tail
fellows spouting on the subject over here on the east side."

"I heard it from a king," said Finch--"the white king of a tribe of
Indians in South America."

I was interested but not surprised. The big city is like a mother's knee
to many who have strayed far and found the roads rough beneath their
uncertain feet. At dusk they come home and sit upon the door-step.
I know a piano player in a cheap café who has shot lions in Africa,
a bell-boy who fought in the British army against the Zulus, an
express-driver whose left arm had been cracked like a lobster's claw for
a stew-pot of Patagonian cannibals when the boat of his rescuers hove in