and my unspeakable carelessness in permitting the official
letters brought to me on the day before by the post-office
messenger to be seen. In my relaxation I had forgotten the eye
of the chair attendant. I took the cigar out of my teeth and
looked at him.

"`And I'll say a little something myself!' I could hardly keep
my foot clear of him. `When you got sober this morning and
remembered who I was, you took a turn up round the post office to
make sure of it, and while you were in there you saw the notice
of the reward for the stolen bond plates. That gave you the
notion with which you pieced out your fairy story about how you
got the dollar tip. Having discovered my identity through a
piece of damned carelessness on my part, and having seen the
postal notice of the reward, you undertook to enlarge your little
game. That's the reason you wouldn't take fifty cents. It was
your notion in the beginning to make a touch for a tip. And it
would have worked. But now you can't get a damned cent out of
me.' Then I threw a little brush into him: `I'd have stood a
touch for your finding the fake tanner, because there isn't any
such person.'

"I intended to put the hobo out of business," Walker went on,
"but the effect of my words on him were even more startling than
I anticipated. His jaw dropped and he looked at me in
astonishment.

"`No such person!' he repeated. `Why, Governor, before God, I
found a man like that, an' he was a banker - one of the big ones,
sure as there's a hell!'"