And you might perceive the president and general manager, Mr. R. G. Atterbury, with his priceless polished poll, busy in the main office room dictating letters to a shorthand contess, who has got pomp and a pompadour that is no less than a guarantee to investors.

There is a book-keeper and an assistant, and a general atmosphere of varnish and culpability.

At another desk the eye is relieved by the sight of an ordinary man, attired with unscrupulous plainness, sitting with his feet up, eating apples, with his obnoxious hat on the back of his head. That man is no other than Colonel Tecumseh (once “Parleyvoo”) Pickens, the vice-president of the company.

“No recherché rags for me,” I says to Atterbury, when we was organizing the stage properties of the robbery. “I’m a plain man,” says I, “and I do not use pajamas, French, or military hair-brushes. Cast me for the râole of the rhinestone-in-the-rough or I don’t go on exhibition. If you can use me in my natural, though displeasing form, do so.”

“Dress you up?” says Atterbury. “I should say not! Just as you are you’re worth more to the business than a whole roomful of the things they pin chrysanthemums on. You’re to play the part of the solid but dishevelled capitalist from the Far West. You despise the conventions. You’ve got so many stocks you can afford to shake socks. Conservative, homely, rough, shrewd, saving—that’s your pose. It’s a winner in New York. Keep your feet on the desk and eat apples. Whenever anybody comes in eat an apple. Let ’em see you stuff the peelings in a drawer of your desk. Look as economical and rich and rugged as you can.”

I followed out Atterbury’s instructions. I played the Rocky Mountain capitalist without ruching or frills. The way I deposited apple peelings to my credit in a drawer when any customers came in made Hetty Green look like a spendthrift. I could hear Atterbury saying to victims, as he smiled at me, indulgent and venerating, “That’s our vice-president, Colonel Pickens … fortune in Western investments … delightfully plain manners, but … could sign his cheque for half a million … simple as a child … wonderful head … conservative and careful almost to a fault.”

Atterbury managed the business. Me and Buck never quite understood all of it, though he explained it to us in full. It seems the company was a kind of co-operative one, and everybody that bought stock shared in the profits. First, we officers bought up a controlling interest—we had to have that—of the shares at fifty cents a hundred—just what the printer charged us—and the rest went to the public at a dollar each. The company guaranteed the stockholders a profit of ten per cent. each month, payable on the last day thereof.

When any stockholder had paid in as much as $ 100, the company issued him a Gold Bond and he became a bond-holder. I asked Atterbury one day what benefits and appurtenances these Gold Bonds was to an investor more so than the immunities and privileges enjoyed by the common sucker who only owned stock. Atterbury picked up one of them Gold Bonds, all gilt and lettered up with flourishes and a big red seal tied with a blue ribbon in a bow-knot, and he looked at me like his feelings was hurt.

“My dear Colonel Pickens,” says he, “you have no soul for Art. Think of a thousand homes made happy by possessing one of these beautiful gems of the lithographer’s skill! Think of the joy in the household where one of these Gold Bonds hangs by a pink cord to the whatnot, or is chewed by the baby, carolling gleefully upon the floor! Ah, I see your eye growing moist, Colonel—I have touched you, have I not?”

“You have not,” says I, “for I’ve been watching you. The moisture you see is apple juice. You can’t expect one man to act as a human cider-press and an art connoisseur too.”

Atterbury attended to the details of the concern. As I understand it, they was simple. The investors in stock paid in their money, and—well, I guess that’s all they had to do. The company received it, and—I don’t call to mind anything else. Me and Buck knew more about selling corn salve than we did about Wall Street, but even we could see how the Golconda Gold Bond Investment Company was making