MR. CLACKWORTHY’S POT OF GOLD, by Christopher B. Booth

I.

Although the relaxed posture of his body suggested indolent ease as he reclined in the depths of a luxuriously comfortable, overstuffed chair, Mr. Amos Clackworthy’s shrewd brain was exceedingly active. Between his eyebrows there was a faint frown, and the eyes themselves lacked that whimsical twinkle which so often accompanied the incubation of a scheme, one of those clever ideas of his, calculated to swell the Clackworthy bank balance to the corresponding diminishment of someone else’s.

The truth of it was that the master confidence man’s mind, while diligently in pursuit of that alluring coinage called “easy money,” was only running around in circles, starting at nowhere and arriving at precisely the same place. Even a master confidence man’s fund of originality must run low at times.

Occupying his favorite place by the window which looked out upon Sheridan Road, Mr. James Early, otherwise “The Early Bird,” tapped the toes of his shoes soundlessly on the thick nap of the beautiful Chinese rug of blue and gold, woven together in a perfect harmony of shading. For more than an hour he had kept his peace, but not without many anxious glances toward the meditative Mr. Clackworthy.

“What’s the matter, boss?” he demanded at length. “Ain’tcha able to coax an idear from the ol’ bean? Mebbe if you primed the think-cylinders with a li’le joy-juice now—”

“It is the weather, James.” The master confidence man sighed in admission of his discouragement. “The heat has gotten next to me, it seems.” His hand reached out and tapped the card-index file, a neat little compartment of exquisitely polished rosewood matching the table; it contained the names of various men well rated financially, selected as future contributors to Mr. Clackworthy’s income. There was an amazing lot of information in those brief notations, intimate data which would have surprised and dumfounded the subjects thereof; their foibles, hobbies, and, not uncommonly, the secret chapters of their lives. The rosewood file was a “prospect list,” a methodical arrangement kept by the man who made the pursuit of easy money a thorough and profitable business.

“Not a single hunch,” he murmured. “It seems to be the closed season for my pet list of suckers, and—”

“An’ it don’t take no movin’ van to tote the bankroll,” interrupted The Early Bird quickly. “Ain’t that it?” His voice took on an apprehensive inflection, but Mr. Clackworthy smiled reassuringly.

“We can hardly go into competition with the subtreasury,” he admitted, “but neither are we in the imminent danger of becoming public charges. The bank balance, to speak in the concrete terms of dollars and cents, is precisely”—he turned to a penciled memo at his elbow—“nineteen thousand two hundred and sixty-three dollars thirty-three cents. In some respects a reassuring sum, but it must be remembered that a confidence man can’t expect to win much confidence without a good and sufficient working capital. The sight of a neat little packet of thousand-dollar bills is more convincing than all the logic; the man who needs credit the worst has the hardest time getting it. Money is the magnate which—”

“Nix on the essay,” interrupted The Early Bird ruefully; “work the chin a little less an’ the noodle a little harder, boss. If the sum total of our mutual assets ain’t more’n nineteen thousand two hundred an’ sixty-three berries—me bein’ flat, due to payin’ tuition in gettin’ educated to the fact that a full house ain’t always worth the limit—we gotta get busy an’ garner in some kale. Lately, things ain’t been breakin’ right for You, Us an’ Company, Unincorporated.”

“Yes, we’ve had a rotten run of luck, James,” admitted Mr. Clackworthy. “If I were superstitious, perhaps I would say that an evil jinx has been clogging our footsteps.”

“Huh!” snorted The Early Bird. “I hope you ain’t got the notion that we’ve been operatin’ under the guidance of a lucky star. Three flivvers out of five schemes, an’ on them two we did put over you can’t say that we took enough coin outta circulation to start the mint workin’ overtime. I’ll tell the money-worshipin’ world we didn’t!”

“At least we stayed out of jail,” reminded Mr. Clackworthy. “That much was lucky.” The Early Bird shivered at the forced recollection of their narrow escape from durance vile; Mr. Clackworthy had played too far across the legal line and had almost come to grief.

“There was a guy what once spieled ‘Money talks,’” said The Early Bird, hastily changing the subject. “I sure make the wish that it would murmur a sweet li’le lovesong into our eagerly strainin’ ears; somethin’ like ‘I’d leave my happy home for you.’ As it is, we ain’t even heard it whisper.”

Mr. Clackworthy laughed, his coplotter’s idiomatic humor restoring his genial good nature. He reached across the table to his cigar humidor and selected one of his favorite brand of perfectos.

“That suggestion of yours, James, about appealing to Bacchus’ for an idea to fertilize the sterility of our brains, and—”

“What mob does this Bacchus guy train with?” demanded The Early Bird. “I ain’t strong for cuttin’ in no outsiders.”

“My dear James!” remonstrated the master confidence man.” Your ignorance of mythology is appalling. Bacchus was the legendary god of wine, and the name—”

“Aw!” grunted The Early Bird, entirely mollified. “I gotcha, boss; that was just a highbrow way, of sayin,’ ‘Let’s wet the tonsils.’ Sure, I’m on; but hereafter when you’re gonna slip me an invite to a drink, it ain’t necessary to be so dang fancy about it.” With alacrity he touched the gong which summoned Nogo, Mr. Clackworthy’s Japanese servant. James and Nogo had a sort of private code between them, and he struck four measured strokes, the signal that liquor, ice, and Seltzer were to be brought. Obedient to the summons, the smiling little Jap came in a few minutes later with a tray containing the requisite ingredients for high balls. Also he brought, tucked under his arm, the afternoon edition of the Chicago newspapers. There were four, for Mr. Clackworthy took them all and read them, from first pages to last; not even did he skip the want ads. It was not infrequently that he garnered from a chance item a bit of valuable information for his “prospect list,” or even the nucleus of an idea that, under the chemistry of his mental processes, could be turned to handsome profit.

After sipping his high ball, the master confidence man picked up his newspapers and began a brief but nonetheless thorough survey of the printed columns. For almost an hour he was so occupied, when he reached page three of The News, the last of the daily publications to reach his attention. Without any comment to The Early Bird who, from the chair by the window was watching eagerly for any signs of a captured idea that might launch them upon a fresh adventure, Mr. Clackworthy put down the paper and lighted a fresh cigar.

Silently, absently, he smoked, meditatively and without haste; his eyelids slightly lowered; now and then he touched his long, shapely fingers to the close-cropped Vandyke beard. Presently, he stirred and reached for the decanter to mix himself another high ball.

“Join me, James, and drink to the success of our latest pilgrimage in the quest of some yet unknown but carelessly tended surplus of this world’s goods,” he invited.

“Whatcha mean, boss?” demanded The Early Bird. “Ain’tcha got the goof picked out and numbered yet?”

“To speak in the metaphor of the shearer, my dear James,” answered Mr. Clackworthy with a laugh, “we have, I think, a sharp pair of shears, but there yet remains to be found—the lamb. However, since we have the assurance of that high authority, Mr. P. T. Barnum, now deceased, that one is born every minute, I think we need entertain no fears on that score.”

“Spill it!”

But the master confidence man kept his own counsel as he proceeded, between sips of his second drink, to work out various details of his yet rather embryonic scheme. After some minutes he again glanced at the third page of The News and then, stepping to a bookcase, he took down an atlas of the world. He turned to the map of Pennsylvania and, as The Early Bird watched him in a mounting fever of curiosity, gave studied attention to it.

“Adventure!” remarked Mr. Clackworthy. “The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! Captain Kidd’s treasure chest of pirated booty buried beneath ten feet of sand on the deserted isle! Capital!”

“Them two high balls has skyrocketed to your head, ain’t they?” demanded The Early Bird with considerable asperity. “Hanged if that chin music don’t sound like you was goin’ in for this free verse stuff. Ain’t no sense to that lingo you’re spielin’. Cut out the verbal ring-around-the-rosy an’ get down to biz.”

Mr. Clackworthy took a gold pencil from his vest-pocket and pressed the point of it against the dot which the Pennsylvania map makers had labeled “ALSCHOOLA” and which, from the capitals, it could be judged was a county seat. Reference to the population list, alphabetically arranged in the back of the atlas, told him that Alschoola had been censused at ten thousand souls.

“If you want to make yourself useful, James,” he said, “you might start packing. We go to Alschoola, Pennsylvania, tonight; to be more exact, we start tonight. Seeing that it is some distance from the route of the through New York trains, I hazard the guess that we will arrive about day after tomorrow.”

The Early Bird blinked.

“Is that on the level, boss?” he demanded. “Are we grabbin’ a rattler for this burg that is pronounced with a sneeze?”

“Never more serious in my life,” affirmed Mr. Clackworthy. It was to be seen that he was generating a high-voltaged enthusiasm for this new scheme, whatever it might be.

“Play the record, boss; lemme in on the know.”

Mr. Clackworthy shook his head teasingly; it always amused him to see The Early Bird tortured on the rack of curiosity.

“Perhaps our liquid refreshment, James, sharpened my wits a bit; but on page three of yonder paper you will find our lead. Suppose you look it over and tell me what you think of it.”

The other leaped from his chair and grabbed the copy of The News, but in vain did his eyes sweep up and down the columns from left to right and from right to left again. He remained as puzzled as before. True enough, there were several Associated Press dispatches from Pennsylvania, but he found none of them mentioning the town with the queer-sounding name of Alschoola. In Philadelphia, a judge had suffered a nervous breakdown as a result of trying more than a thousand divorce cases; in Pittsburgh a kidnapped boy had been returned to his broken-hearted parents.

With an impatient growl, The Early Bird threw down the paper and turned on his heel.

“Watcha goin’ to this here Alschoola for?” he demanded flatly.

“Money,” answered Mr. Clackworthy with unilluminating brevity.

II.

James Early did not find his first glimpse of Alschoola reassuring. As he and the master confidence man disembarked from a non-Pullman train, the only kind that operated over the twenty-five-mile branch, his first impression was that the railroad company did not care enough about Alschoola to bestow upon it a respectable passenger station. Away from the shabby depot there extended a bumpy cobblestone street, leading uphill toward the business section.

The Early Bird wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about the business part of the town, either. Accusingly he swung upon the master confidence man and glared.

“I hope you ain’t got no idear that we’re gonna take any dough outta this place?” he demanded with disgusted skepticism. “Huh! The whole burg wouldn’t auction off for fifty berries—of my jack.”

“Appearances,” reminded Mr. Clackworthy, “are often deceiving. And permit me to say that a town is but the composite of its strongest personalities, now and then of but one dominating personality; towns, like the men who make them, have traits of individuality. What strikes you, on the surface, as being Alschoola’s outstanding trait?”

“Freezin’ onto the jack,” snapped The Early Bird promptly; “squeezin’ down on the silver dollar until the eagle squawks an’ Lady Columbia sobs for mercy.”

“Right!” and Mr. Clackworthy nodded. “Step to the head of the class.” He gestured toward the shabby buildings and the poorly paved, ill-lighted street ahead of them. “Here we see a miserly municipal spirit and a horror of high taxes. I think it would be a safe guess to say that Alschoola is dominated by a clique of dollar-worshiping gentlemen who find progress too expensive for their tastes. Such men, my dear James, are the sort we like to pluck.”

The Early Bird grunted without enthusiasm; for himself, he preferred to have some visible evidence of the wealth that they proposed to gather in.

“When I was liftin’ leathers,” he said, referring to those days previous to his association with the master confidence man, “I never picked out no panhandlers when the fins was itchin’ for a fat roll.”

There was no station bus, the lack of a public conveyance being explained by the proximity of the hotel sign, “Alschoola House,” prominently displayed half a block up the dingy street. There being, likewise, no hotel porter to lighten their burden, the two plotters had no choice but to pick up their bags and make their way hotelward.

On the corner, before reaching the hostelry, they had to pass a rusty-looking building with peeling lettering on the plate-glass window which announced: “Alschoola State Bank.” Crowded up against the window was a desk before which sat a man who at the moment was fondling a packet of currency.

“See the money buzzard!” remarked The Early Bird.

Mr. Clackworthy smiled; he had to admit that there was something about the man at the bank desk, onion-smooth of pate, narrow-eyed, and with a beaked nose curving down over the upper lips of his thin mouth, which did make one think of a bird of prey.

“I wonder if that is the chief mogul of Alschoola,” he said. “What a joy it would be to separate him from some of the money which he strokes so fondly!”

“Yeah,” snorted The Early Bird, “an’ what a joy it would be to breeze into the subtreasury some quiet P.M., an’ stroll leisurely forth with a coupla suit cases full of thousand-case notes. It would be easier to take two or three million outta the mint than to bilk that bozo outta two bits.”

The Alschoola House extended no cordial hand of welcome. The lazy-eyed, slow-moving clerk was smoking a corncob pipe as he watched two bearded oldsters engrossed with a game of checkers. Almost reluctantly, he tore himself away to receive the two incoming guests from Chicago.

Casting a further disapproving glance over the lobby, The Early Bird waited for Mr. Clackworthy to register. The lobby was shabbily and indifferently furnished with cane-bottomed chairs, numerous cuspidors, and a long, battered table for traveling salesmen to write their letters, at present given over to the checker game. The hotel desk itself was a counter, the top of which was covered with carpeting; at the end of it stood a fly-speckled cigar case of very doubtful-looking smokes.

“Two rooms with baths,” murmured Mr. Clackworthy mechanically as he affixed his name and that of James Early to the untidy register. It was the order that he always gave for accommodations.

“Huh?” A surprised ejaculation came from the shirt-sleeved clerk, and he stared sharply, suspecting that he was being made the butt of banter.

“Two rooms and baths, if you don’t mind.”

“How’ll a shower do?” and the clerk snickered. “Josh Duncan’s rheumatism says rain, an’ the roof of No. 18 is some leaky.”

“Ain’tcha got no bathtubs in this joint?” demanded The Early Bird indignantly.

The clerk, perceiving that the request for baths had been quite serious, ceased grinning. He suddenly realized that Alschoola House was entertaining two guests accustomed to luxury and willing to pay for it.

“Sorry, gentlemen,” he said, “but we ain’t got but one bath to the floor.”

Mr. Clackworthy smiled philosophically, and even offered the clerk a cigar. Past experience had shown him that considerable information of value is often to be obtained from friendly knights of the hotel desk.

“Do the best you can for us,” he said cheerfully. “We shall probably be here for some time.” At this prospect The Early Bird gave voice to a mournful groan and sank miserably into a chair.

The clerk was now looking the pair over in a critically appraising survey, noting the faultless tailoring of Mr. Clackworthy’s one hundred-and-fifty-dollar suit, the neat cut of his Vandyke beard, the expansive opulence which exuded from his tall, impressive figure.

“You ain’t—hum—sellin’ stock?” he ventured suspiciously.

“No.”

“It wouldn’t’ be none of my put-in, nohow; only, if you was, I was goin’ to tell you that the same train you come in on goes back in fifty minutes. This ain’t no town for stock salesmen. Flint Whitecotton don’t like nobody comin’ in here an’ packin’ away Alschoola money—and what Flint Whitecotton says in this man’s town, goes.”

“Ah!” murmured Mr. Clackworthy, his eyes lighting with interest. “Quite the local nabob, Mr. Whitecotton.”

“Yep! Owns half the town, an he’s got a mortgage on the other half.”

“Tell me,” requested Mr. Clackworthy, “is he somewhat bald of head, with a hook-nose, and—”

“That’s him, mister.”

“I saw him as I passed the bank.”

“Uh-huh; president of the bank. Owns the big store, flour mill, lumber yard, and—”

“An’ the hotel, of course,” chimed in The Early Bird from his slouched position in the chair.

“No, but I guess he will,” and the clerk sighed. “He’s got a mortgage on it. Like as not I’ll lose my job then; we don’t get along very well, Flint Whitecotton an’ me. That’s why I tipped you off in case you was sellin’ stock. Old Flint got the city council to pass an ordinance taxin’ every stock salesman a hundred dollars.” He frowned, frankly puzzled; swiftly, he began checking over the list of possible businesses that might have brought the prosperous-looking gentlemen to Alschoola. Not groceries, farm implements, washing machines, patent churns—and certainly they were not book agents.

“I am an emissary of—progress,” said the master confidence man.

The clerk blinked solemnly for a moment, then pounded his fist down on the carpeted top of the desk.

“You’re a capitalist!” he exclaimed.

“Yes, I have been so accused.”

“I ought to have guessed that right off, Mr.—” He gave a quick glance toward the register. “Mr. Clackworthy. I wonder now if you mebbe come to have a look at Whitecotton’s twenty-acre tract east of town?” His tired, dreamy-looking eyes were alight now, and his voice trembled with eagerness.

Mr. Clackworthy shook his head and stated that such was not the case, but adding that he might be interested if the Whitecotton tract showed any opportunity of profit.

“It does!” the clerk cried. “There’s a gold mine out there in the Whitecotton tract. If you’re a capitalist, you’re the man I want to talk to. There’s a fortune in that deposit for them that puts it on the market. It won’t take much capital.”

“What sort of a deposit?”

“Statuary clay, that’s what. My name’s Lemuel Budkins, and you an’ me ought to get together, for”—his voice raised triumphantly—“I got an option on that twenty acres of land.”

It cannot be truthfully said that a deposit of sculptor’s modeling clay appealed to Mr. Clackworthy as offering promise of much profit, but it did occur to him that this might, in some way or another, provide the wedge which would pry open the way into Flint Whitecotton’s hoard.

“When you can spare a little time, Mr. Budkins,” he said, “I’ll be glad to talk things over.”

“I got time right now,” answered Budkins promptly; “that’s all I have got.” He grabbed two of the traveling bags and led the way up the hotel stairs.

A few minutes later, his forehead glistening with moisture, his eyes gleaming with the rebirth of dying hopes, he leaned forward in a chair, facing Mr. Clackworthy and The Early Bird, trying to convince them that he held the key to sudden and certain wealth.

“You see,” said Mr. Budkins, “I got the idee from a feller what was boardin’ down here last summer at my Aunt Mandy’s. He ran across that clay deposit just by accident. Said it was the best statuary clay he ever seen. Him not havin’ any capital, he let me in on it, so we organized a little company, and—”

“How much capitalization?” inquired Mr. Clackworthy.

“Oh, we ain’t incorporated yet,” replied Budkins. “Seems like De Vine—that’s my partner’s name—must have hit a snag or mebbe died or something for I ain’t heard from him in most a year. I had two or three nice, encouragin’ letters, an’ then he quit writin’ all of a sudden, but—”

“How far did you get with your promotion plans?” inquired the master confidence man.

“Not far, an’ somethin’ has got to be done quick, I took an option on Flint Whitecotton’s twenty acres, an’ it runs out on the first of the month. That’s next Friday. Only paid him a hundred dollars for it, but”—he colored in embarrassment—“the truth is, Mr. Clackworthy, I ain’t got any more money to pay for another option. You see, I let De Vine have four hundred dollars for his expenses, an’—”

“I gotcha,” interrupted The Early Bird. “You been nicked for four hundred iron men.”

Mr. Budkins looked puzzled for a moment and then flushed guiltily.

“I—I sort of begun to have that suspicion,” he admitted haltingly.

“It ain’t no suspicion; it’s a lead-pipe cinch,” said James. “Consider yourself an enrolled scholar in the School of Experience, an’ a fully initiated member of The Ancient Order of Trimmed Mutts. You been buncoed, bilked, fleeced, flimflammed an’ otherwise deprived of four hundred berries.”

“My dear James!” reproved Mr. Clackworthy sternly. He turned apologetically to Budkins. “Have you tried to interest—ah—local capital?” he inquired politely.

“There ain’t no local capital, except what Flint Whitecotton has got squeezed in them two graspin’ fists of his,” Budkins answered bitterly. “He ain’t got no vision; can’t see no further than a dollar can cast a shadow. I tried to get him interested, but he just laughed at me. I tell you, Mr. Clackworthy, it’s a gold mine. Just think—thirty-five dollars a ton just for clay that can be dug off the top of the ground with a shovel. Just think of it! Easier than minin’ coal, an’ coal sellin’ for about six dollars to the ton!”

Mr. Clackworthy could have reminded him that the consumption of sculptor’s clay would total very few tons a year, that it was but an empty daydream, This, in fact, he proceeded to do, as gently and as kindly as possible.

“While I am quite certain, Mr. Budkins, that your deposit of sculptor’s clay lacks financial possibilities, I feel almost certain that I can return you the money which you would otherwise lose in the venture, and perhaps some interest besides. I shall let you know this afternoon.”

Lemuel Budkins’ face mirrored both disappointment and relief; it is hard, sometimes, to surrender a daydream, but five hundred dollars is a great deal of money to a man who hasn’t any. In the case of the hotel clerk, the capital which had been swallowed up in his foolish, visionary scheme represented frugal economies.

When Budkins had departed, The Early Bird let his gaze wander from the cracked washbasin and pitcher on the rickety washstand in the corner of the room, to rest disgustedly on Mr. Clackworthy’s face.

“Say!” he exploded. “What’s the grand idear? Are we goin’ around the country weedin’ back some other guy’s graft, or are we out to grab a little kale on our own hook?”

Mr. Clackworthy looked thoughtful for a moment.

“James,” he said slowly, “during our association, have I ever taken money from a poor man? Have I ever trimmed an honest man? In my own defense, I answer, ‘No!’ Every man who has contributed to us, has fallen victim to his own avarice.

“The idea, my dear James, is to build a neat little trap for the local Midas known as Flint Whitecotton; a man, if my surmise is correct, as hard as his front name. The idea, my indignant partner in crime, is to convince Banker Whitecotton that he had a grievous financial mistake in optioning that twenty-acre tract of his on the edge of town.”

“An’ sell the option back to him, huh? What’s the lay? You ain’t flirtin’ with the idear that you’re gonna make him fall for no sculptor’s clay racket?”

“Hardly!” Mr. Clackworthy laughed. “Hardly that, I fear that our hard-headed, tight-fisted banker is not so credulous as Mr. Burkin. Bestir yourself, and we shall have a look at that twenty acres of clay land.”

The tract was but three miles from town, and thirty minutes later the two pursuers of easy money had made the trip in a hired flivver and were looking over the property. It was, indeed, as worthless-looking a piece of real estate as one might expect to find in the entire State of Pennsylvania. Half of it was a tangle of starved underbrush, and the remaining part of it was devoid of any growing thing, for the whitish clay was lacking in fertility. In the hot sun it was baked brick hard.

For a quarter of an hour Mr. Clackworthy devoted himself to a survey of the property, his brows knitted in thought. He noticed particularly that the State highway ran alongside the twenty acres. Although he nodded, The Early Bird’s wrath grew apace.

“And now,” said the master confidence man, “we will go back and proceed to take Mr. Whitecotton’s measure.”

“His name may be cotton,” grunted James, “but I’ll lay a li’le bet that you ain’t gonna pick him.”

“That’s a sporting proposition. Any amount you like.”

“A hundred seeds, boss.” He cast a last disgusted glance at the desolate twenty acres and shook his head. It didn’t seem humanly possible that any sane man would give up good money for it; he thought of the mysterious news item which had inspired the idea—and wondered with a curiosity which burned almost to fever heat.

III.

The building which housed the Alschoola State Bank gave no outward appearance of opulence, and neither did Mr. Flint Whitecotton, the bank’s president. He wore a suit even more shabby than was the building; one judged his favorite axiom to be “A penny saved is a penny earned.” The suit was frayed, threadbare, and darned in several places. The cuffs of his shirt wore aged whiskers; his shoes were unshined, as if he begrudged the cost of the polish necessary to give them a gloss; even the smoothness of his head was an item of economy. It did away with the necessity of barber bills.

Flint Whitecotton had a leathery skin, drawn drum tight over his bones. His eyes held a cold, freezing quality, and, as the bank door opened that afternoon, he frowned in black disfavor at the sinful extravagance as represented by Mr. Amos Clackworthy’s perfect harmony of attire. Such sartorial prodigality, in the opinion of Mr. Whitecotton, was downright criminal.

Wasting no time in the little pleasantries generally attending a formal introduction, Mr. Clackworthy opened his wallet and put in front of the banker five bills, each of one thousand dollars’ denomination. Mr. Whitecotton’s eyes bulged.

“I wish to open an account,” said the master confidence man crisply. “My name is Clackworthy, my home Chicago. If you desire business references—” He knew there would not be a call for them, although he could readily have supplied them; a five-thousand-dollar cash deposit speaks for itself. Worshipfully, the banker’s fingers went out and began to stroke the beloved thousand-dollar bills. He gave the new depositor a look of baffled curiosity.

“Humph!” he grunted. His voice was like his face—harsh and unpleasant. “May I ask if you contemplate—ah—going into business here?”

“You might call it that.”

“What line?”

“I propose to develop a resource that has been locally overlooked.” Mr. Clackworthy smiled as he spoke. “If you will kindly give me credit for the five thousand, and a check book, I will write to your order a check for two thousand dollars.”

“Huh? Check—two thousand—to my order?” gasped Mr. Whitecotton. He again stared at the new customer, this time as if searching for some outward signs of insanity.

“Precisely. You see, I have purchased from Lemuel Bodkins his option on that twenty acres of clay land east of town, and I wish to exercise the option. The check, if you please. You’ll pardon me if I seem rather abrupt, but there are so many things I want to attend to—lumber for the buildings, some telegrams, and that sort of thing. Quite a lot of detail to getting a new enterprise started, you know.”

As the banker mechanically made a notation in a pass book, an ill-concealed sneer twisted his thin lips.

“You are buying that clay land?” he demanded incredulously.

“Quite so.” Already Mr. Clackworthy had uncapped his fountain pen and was filling in a check. “Just give me a receipt for it, and you can make the deed out later; tomorrow will do.”

“What are you going to do with it?” demanded the banker bluntly.

“Extract a certain chemical property valuable to science,” replied the confidence man glibly; and then, with a laugh: “Oh, I assure you that it has nothing to do with sculptor’s clay, Mr. Whitecotton. You would hardly expect me to be wasting my time with an insignificant scheme like Budkins’. The poor chap has had his little dream and, fortunately, gets out with a whole skin and a little to spare. I gave him seven hundred dollars for his option.”

“What?” The banker’s tone rose to a shrill note for two reasons. One was because it seemed such an unnecessary waste of money—seven hundred dollars tossed away to a visionary young fool like Lem Budkins, when a hundred would have done quite as well; the other was that the option would have expired within another week. This extravagantly dressed stranger evidently wanted the twenty acres badly, and how Flint Whitecotton would have made him pay!

“Sure,” said Mr. Clackworthy. “I felt sorry for the chap.” The banker shivered; such costly pity was beyond his ken. Immediately he formed a very low regard for Mr. Clackworthy’s ability as a business man.

IV.

Within the succeeding days, Alschoola was shown some speed. A neat but inexpensive shack went up on the Whitecotton twenty acres, almost overnight. Mr. Clackworthy paid spot cash for the lumber and the carpenter hire. The town, of course, was abuzz with speculation and guesses; but no one except Mr. Clackworthy knew, and he didn’t tell. Even The Early Bird was not, as he would say, “in on the know,” a fact which galled him bitterly.

With the completing of the shack and a high board fence, total cost eight hundred dollars, the two mysterious strangers began to keep regular hours, admitting no one. The town wondered what they did there, and would have been further mystified to have witnessed the strange capitalist calmly stretched out in a steamer chair, reading a volume of Freud’s Psychoanalysis, while The Early Bird paced the floor like a caged lion, smoking countless cigarettes and muttering angrily.

It was midafternoon and James gave way to his daily explosion.

“I gotta have a look-in!” he stormed. “You gotta tell me what the lay is.”

Mr. Clackworthy looked up lazily.

“We are going to sell Mr. Whitecotton’s worthless farm back to him—at a handsome profit,” he answered innocently. “I thought you knew that.”

“But how are you gonna hook him?” demanded The Early Bird. “What’s the bait we’re usin’?”

“Gold,” answered Mr. Clackworthy solemnly, “a pot of gold. Didn’t you read that item on the third page of—”

“I didn’t see nothin’ from no Pennsylvania towns except—”

“As it happens,” interrupted Mr. Clackworthy with a chuckle, “it wasn’t a news item from any Pennsylvania town, but an Associated Press dispatch from Washington, D. C., relating to a certain Congressional inquiry which is now in progress and occupying generous amounts of space almost daily. Question me no further, James; this is a little guessing contest of mine. Try your luck at it.”

“You know I ain’t got a chance.”

“Very well, I’ll add a bit more,” said Mr. Clackworthy, “Our mutual friend and often able assistant, George Bascom, will arrive in Alschoola day after tomorrow. He will remain entire stranger to both of us. We’ve never seen him before; we don’t know him from Adam’s off-ox.

“George will appear in Alschoola garbed in tatters which will make a Russian refugee look like Beau Brummel. He is empty of pocket and desperate of mind; he appeals to Banker Whitecotton. Mr. Whitecotton is skeptical and at the same time credulous. He doesn’t believe George’s story, but it has such a ring of truth, backed up by such a wealth of newspaper accounts, that he dare not ignore the chance of finding out if it is really true that his clay land is worth, not a mere two thousand dollars, but a hundred times that sum.”

“Two hundred thousand smackers?” gasped The Early Bird.

“Your multiplication is correct,” and Mr. Clackworthy nodded. “Mr. Whitecotton will be half convinced that his clay farm is worth two hundred thousand dollars in cash. And, on the evening of the day after tomorrow, George will proceed to convince him entirely—by a personally conducted visit to this very spot. Does it now become clear to you, my dear James?”

“Huh! Just as clear, boss, as a cloudy day on Lake Mich,” The Early Bird remarked, then groaned. “Come on an’ gimme a look-in.”

Mr. Clackworthy shook his head teasingly and glanced at his watch.

“Come to think about it,” he murmured, “I’ll have to be getting to the bank for a little talk with Mr. Whitecotton. He’s got a sight draft on me for thirty-two hundred dollars, and I’ve only eighteen hundred on deposit to meet it.”

“Whatcha talkin’ about? Ain’tcha got five thousand iron men in your kick?”

“True enough,” said the master confidence man, “but what is in my pocket is not for Mr. Whitecotton to know. He is to be only aware that of the five thousand dollars I deposited in his bank, just one thousand eight hundred dollars remain. And—I don’t want to meet the draft, anyhow. It’s one that Pop Blanchard sent here; just a little touch in realism.”

Half an hour later, Mr. Clackworthy, not looking so cheerful as he inwardly felt, was closeted with the local banker. Almost accusingly, Mr. Whitecotton produced the sight draft, a demand that one Mr. Amos Clackworthy pay over the sum of three thousand two hundred dollars forthwith.

“What about this?” he demanded.

“It’s for some machinery that I have ordered, and which won’t be shipped until it is paid,” said Mr. Clackworthy with apparent glumness. “I need that machinery, and I need it bad. I can’t get started until I have it; things haven’t gone as smoothly as I had anticipated, and I hope that you—”

“There is but one question before me,” cut in the banker icily. “Have you the money to meet this draft, or shall I sent it back unpaid?”

“You’ve got to help me out, Mr. Whitecotton,” pleaded Mr. Clackworthy, “I’ve got a balance of one thousand eight hundred dollars on deposit; I need one thousand four hundred dollars to meet the draft. I paid you two thousand dollars for the land; suppose you lend me one thousand four hundred dollars on a ten-day note, with the land as security.”

Banker Whitecotton laughed shrilly.

“Lend you one thousand four hundred dollars on that pile of clay?” he snorted. “It isn’t worth fifty dollars an acre. I wouldn’t give you thirty dollars an acre for it.”

“But I paid you a hundred an acre.”

“A bargain is a bargain,” retorted the banker. “No one asked you to buy that land from me. Don’t argue; I won’t lend you a dollar on your hare-brained scheme.”

“That’s because you don’t understand the chemical possibilities,” persisted Mr. Clackworthy with just as much earnestness as if he had really expected to win the man over. He launched into a long, apparently technical, explanation of his contemplated process of extracting certain expensive chemicals from that peculiar whitish loam—all of which was Greek to the Alschoola banker.

“See here, Mr. Whitecotton,” he went on, “I stand on the brink of success or failure. There has been a slight hitch in my plans; the money I expect to get has not come into my hands yet. I hope—”

“So did half-witted Lem Budkins,” snapped Whitecotton.

“Take a look at this,” pleaded Mr. Clackworthy, producing a letter. It was ostensibly from a New York chemical company offering him twenty thousand dollars for his entire rights. The banker, of course, had no way of knowing that those letterheads had been printed on Mr. Clackworthy’s order and mailed by Pop Blanchard in New York; nevertheless, he tossed it aside with hardly a glance.

“Not interested,” he said harshly. “You haven’t the money to pay the draft; therefore, I send it back.”

“And force me to sell out for a paltry twenty thousand dollars!” Mr. Clackworthy exclaimed bitterly. Mr. Whitecotton winced; it hurt him to hear such a sum sneeringly referred to as “paltry.”

V.

The following afternoon, on the five o’clock train, George Bascom arrived in Alschoola. According to previous instructions, he was shabbily dressed, wore a dented derby hat, and had a four-day bristle of beard on his normally round and clean-shaven face.

He slouched almost furtively up the street away from the railroad station. The bank, of course, was closed, but he made inquiries at Hope’s Drug Store and had himself directed to the residence of Flint Whitecotton. The banker was on the front porch of his cottage—it, like everything else he owned, had been secured with the smallest possible outlay of cash—fanning himself with a palm-leaf fan, which was an advertisement and had cost him nothing, waiting for supper. He glared at the approach of the ragged stranger.

“Go away!” he called. “We don’t feed tramps.”

“Mr. Whitecotton,” said George. “I’m no tramp, and you’ve got to listen to me. I’m a chauffeur, and—”

“Save your breath; I don’t need a chauffeur. I haven’t any automobile—not with gasoline at thirty cents a gallon. Sinful extravagance, that is!”

“I don’t want a job, either,” went on George Bascom; “I don’t want money or free food or a job. All I want is that you should listen to me.”

“Well, so long as it don’t cost anything,” agreed Banker Whitecotton a little less grudgingly, “I’ll listen.”

“To keep you from throwing me off the place for a lunatic,” began George, “I’ll show you some of these newspaper clippings.” He poked a grimy hand into his pocket and brought out a half dozen badly worn newspaper clippings. “Just glance over those, and then I’ll talk.”

Flint Whitecotton did glance them over, and his impatience gave way to curiosity.

“Well?” he demanded.

“Maybe you wonder why I come to you,” went on George. “I’ll tell you why. It’s because I’m too dead broke to buy so much as a shovel to dig for the gold that is buried—I won’t tell you where until we make a deal. Any minute I’m liable to be arrested as a vagrant. Your city marshal followed me three blocks when I got off the train. Two hundred thousand dollars in gold weighs a lot more than anyone man can pack. There’s got to be a car to take it away. Understand? I’ve got to have help. Sure, I might have gone in with some crook, but he’d probably have knifed me in the back for my share.

“If I tell you where it’s buried, do we split fifty-fifty? There’s only two people on earth who know where it’s hid, me and the woman, and she don’t dare to make a move, on account of the government agents watching her so close. Do we make a deal?”

There was a light of fascination in Flint Whitecotton’s cold, blue eyes; as Mr. Clackworthy had predicted, he could hardly believe it, and yet he dared not doubt it entirely. There was just one thing that decided him—no expense was involved.

“I’ll go in with you,” he agreed, “I’ll buy the shovels. We don’t have to go to the cost of hiring an automobile until we’re sure it’s where you say it was buried. Where is that place?”

“On your own land,” answered George Bascom, “that patch of yours out on the State road. It’s buried four feet down in the clay. I can take you right to the spot; I’ll take you now.”

A hoarse cry burst through the lips of the miserly banker. The land that he had sold for two thousand dollars was worth almost a quarter of a million dollars in buried treasure!

VI.

Even Mr. Clackworthy in his most confident moments had not anticipated that things would go through to such a whirlwind finish. He had not dreamed that the banker’s greed would be so sharply whetted that he would plunge in, head over heels, within a few hours. The reason for it, no doubt, was Whitecotton’s fear that George Bascom, to all appearances the penniless, desperate possessor of a two-hundred-thousand dollar secret, would discover that he, the banker, was no longer the owner of the treasure-bearing twenty acres. George, too, must have told his story well and convincingly for the cautious, canny miser to have swallowed it, hook, line, and sinker.

But that is just what happened, and Mr. Clackworthy, who had planned many further elaborate details, was totally unprepared to receive a summons from Flint Whitecotton the next morning.

“Mr. Clackworthy,” began the banker, “perhaps I was—um—rather hasty with you during our last talk. However, I have—ah—been thinking it over, and I have decided that I owe it as my duty as a—ah—a public-spirited citizen to take an interest in this budding enterprise of yours. That letter you showed to me, in which you were offered twenty thousand dollars to sell out—that in itself shows that your venture must have merit.”

Mr. Clackworthy looked discouraged.

“I was just on the verge of sending a wire to the New York firm, telling them that I would accept twenty-five thousand dollars and get out. They expected, of course, to raise the ante when they offered twenty thousand dollars. The truth of it is, Mr. Whitecotton, that I’m too small a fellow to fight the big combine; that’s what scared off the capital that had been promised me. My hands are up; I quit. There’s no use in talking things over; I’m going to sell out.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” interposed Banker Whitecotton hastily. “Now why can’t we form a company? Perhaps I would put up ten thousand dollars, but—um—I would, of course, expect to control.”

“I’d rather sell out than be frozen out later,” retorted Mr. Clackworthy shrewdly. “No, so long as I’m whipped, I’ll take all the money I can get.” He started to get from his chair, but the banker stopped him insistently. They talked for two long, haggling hours, and at length, cold sweat pouring from his bald forehead, Flint Whitecotton, the stingiest man whom Amos Clackworthy had ever done business with, inclined his head slowly, reluctantly; he agreed to give twenty-five thousand dollars.

* * * *

Again Mr. Clackworthy and The Early Bird were passengers on the non-Pullman train on the branch line which terminated at Alschoola. This time, however, they were bound away from the shabby, unprogressive town, for which James was thankful; within the wallet of the master confidence man reposed twenty-five thousand dollars in currency, and for this they were both thankful.

But The Early Bird’s forehead was corrugated with a puzzled frown.

“I ain’t got it all through the old bean yet, boss,” he admitted. “You’re tryin’ to tell me that the old dollar squeezer come across with twenty-five thousand smackers because he swallowed George Bascom’s fairy tale about there bein’ a coupla hundred thousand in the yellow stuff in the terra firma of that clay farm you bought off’n him for a coupla thousand berries?”

“It was realism, that did the trick, my dear James,” said Mr. Clackworthy, chuckling. “That, and his naturally greedy, grasping nature. Moreover, he thought he was playing safe so far as his twenty-five thousand is concerned. Before he closed with me, he sent a wire to The Gotham Chemical Corporation, asking them if they would give twenty-five thousand dollars to buy me out; since The Gotham Chemical Corporation is Pop Blanchard, the answer was ‘Yes.’ He didn’t suspect a flimflam, because he couldn’t imagine any sane man who would risk paying out two thousand dollars on a long chance.”

“What I’m gettin’ at, boss,” said The Early Bird, “is, what was the hocus-pocus that made him fall for George Bascom’s fake about that buried gold?”

“You’re hopeless,” and Mr. Clackworthy sighed. “You read the newspapers every day, too. Certainly you should recall that for some time there has been a Congressional inquiry regarding a certain war slacker named Grover Blindhouse, who escaped from army imprisonment and made his way to Europe. The Congressional inquiry brought out that the young man’s mother, the widow of a wealthy Pennsylvania brewer, got together the astounding sum of two hundred thousand dollars in cash and buried it not many miles from Philadelphia for her son’s use in his flight. However, the money is still buried; she dare not try to recover it, for fear that secret-service agents will shadow her and the government confiscate it, and she won’t tell where it was buried. The clipping which gave me the inspiration for this very profitable adventure of ours—”

He paused and reached into his pocket. The Early Bird accepted the scrap of paper and read:

***

SEEK BLINDHOUSE

CHAUFFEUR WHO DROVE

$200,000 TREASURE CAR

-

Congressional Inquiry Reveals Name of

Man Who Can Lead Way

to Buried Wealth.

***

“I gotcha, boss!” exclaimed The Early Bird. “George Bascom slipped Whitecotton a yarn about bein’ the missin’ chauffeur.”

“As a finishing touch,” continued Mr. Clackworthy, “I’ve given the old miser something to puzzle about. At the spot where he will dig, there is planted an iron chest containing—a hundred dollars in pennies. And that’s your money, by the way, James.”

“But,” said The Early Bird with an apprehensive shudder, “that bird is gonna be some wild—if he don’t drop dead on the spot. What if he starts investigatin’ an’ find’s that fake chemical company—”

“Checkmate!” exclaimed Mr. Clackworthy. “The only way he can get us convicted, my dear James, is to plead guilty himself to a conspiracy against the government. We have got him, as they say, going and coming.”