"I never could hold my partner, Andy Tucker, down to legitimate ethics
of pure swindling," said Jeff Peters to me one day.

"Andy had too much imagination to be honest. He used to devise schemes
of money-getting so fraudulent and high-financial that they wouldn't
have been allowed in the bylaws of a railroad rebate system.

"Myself, I never believed in taking any man's dollars unless I gave
him something for it--something in the way of rolled gold jewelry,
garden seeds, lumbago lotion, stock certificates, stove polish or a
crack on the head to show for his money. I guess I must have had New
England ancestors away back and inherited some of their stanch and
rugged fear of the police.

"But Andy's family tree was in different kind. I don't think he could
have traced his descent any further back than a corporation.

"One summer while we was in the middle West, working down the Ohio
valley with a line of family albums, headache powders and roach
destroyer, Andy takes one of his notions of high and actionable
financiering.

"'Jeff,' says he, 'I've been thinking that we ought to drop these
rutabaga fanciers and give our attention to something more nourishing
and prolific. If we keep on snapshooting these hinds for their egg
money we'll be classed as nature fakers. How about plunging into the
fastnesses of the skyscraper country and biting some big bull caribous
in the chest?'

"'Well,' says I, 'you know my idiosyncrasies. I prefer a square,