last night after only a couple of hours' talk, listening to the same old
story of boss-rule, and giving him, if I do say it, some cracking good
practical pointers. By the way, we were interrupted at that. Hadn't got
started before Hare remembered that he'd promised to bring some girl
home from somewhere, and dragged me off a mile down the road, only to
find out afterwards that she'd gone home with somebody else. Made me
tired. I left him about ten o'clock and started down Main Street for the
river, meaning to come straight back here. But as I was footing it
along, thinking over my talk with Hare and attending to my own business,
who should brace me but that pale-faced rascal we saw playing dead in
the rowboat. This time the _poseur_ was lying flat on some packing-cases
in front of a store, and who do you suppose he turned out to be?"

"The brains of the machine," said Varney.

He told briefly of his own meeting with Coligny Smith at the same spot
two hours earlier, and of the editor's stagey warnings.

"Exactly the way he did me!" cried Peter. "Saved the announcement of
who he was for the grand _finale_ in Act V. I got mad as a wet hen, told
him what I thought of him in simple language, and then when the grafter
twitted me to go and do something about it, I broke loose and swore that
I'd make Hare Mayor of Hunston if I had to buy the little two-by-twice
town to do it. Told him to pack his trunk, for all the crooks would soon
be traveling toward the timber. So then I turned right around, hiked
back to Hare's, told him what I'd done, gave him my hand on it, and
pulled out the old family check-book. This morning I went to him and
laid before him the greatest scheme that ever was. You know Hare can't
get a hall to speak in for love or money--nobody dares rent him one; he
can't buy an inch of space in the _Gazette_; he can't put spreads on the