"Hyperbole aside," says I, "do you know of any immediate system of
buncoing the community out of a dollar or two except by applying to the
Salvation Army or having a fit on Miss Helen Gould's doorsteps?"

"Dozens of 'em," says Silver. "How much capital have you got, Billy?"

"A thousand," I told him.

"I've got $1,200," says he. "We'll pool and do a big piece of business.
There's so many ways we can make a million that I don't know how to
begin."

The next morning Silver meets me at the hotel and he is all sonorous and
stirred with a kind of silent joy.

"We're to meet J. P. Morgan this afternoon," says he. "A man I know in
the hotel wants to introduce us. He's a friend of his. He says he likes
to meet people from the West."

"That sounds nice and plausible," says I. "I'd like to know Mr. Morgan."

"It won't hurt us a bit," says Silver, "to get acquainted with a few
finance kings. I kind of like the social way New York has with
strangers."

The man Silver knew was named Klein. At three o'clock Klein brought his
Wall Street friend to see us in Silver's room. "Mr. Morgan" looked some
like his pictures, and he had a Turkish towel wrapped around his left
foot, and he walked with a cane.