premonitions. He got off the safe and lit the biggest cigar in the
house.


[Illustration: "Andy was especial inroaded by self-esteem."]


"'Jeff,' says he, 'I don't suppose that anywhere in the world you
could find three cormorants with brighter ideas about down-treading
the proletariat than the firm of Peters, Satan and Tucker,
incorporated. We have sure handed the small consumer a giant blow in
the sole apoplectic region. No?'

"'Well,' says I, 'it does look as if we would have to take up
gastritis and golf or be measured for kilts in spite of ourselves.
This little turn in bug juice is, verily, all to the Skibo. And I can
stand it,' says I, 'I'd rather batten than bant any day.'

"Andy pours himself out four fingers of our best rye and does with it
as was so intended. It was the first drink I had ever known him to
take.

"'By way of liberation,' says he, 'to the gods.'

"And then after thus doing umbrage to the heathen diabetes he drinks
another to our success. And then he begins to toast the trade,
beginning with Raisuli and the Northern Pacific, and on down the line
to the little ones like the school book combine and the oleomargarine
outrages and the Lehigh Valley and Great Scott Coal Federation.