It seemed that a New England congressman Jim knew was much addicted to the gaming table. They met at Willard’s Hotel in Washington, and later on were gambling together. It was rather of a queer combination, this United States legislator and a sneak thief, but they became chummy, and therein lies the secret. Of cash the congressman had none too much, without having to settle gambling bills, and when luck was against him, there were moments when it would seem to him that the muzzle of a pistol at his head wasn’t the worst thing in the world. “A clerk in the United States Treasury counting-room tells me that packages of new money lie around loose in there, like so much waste paper,” the congressman said to Burns one day, when his funds were low and his conscience hard; “couldn’t you get away with one?” “Nothing easier,” was Burns’s assuring response. In Jim’s room at the Willard it was decided what to do, and the congressman was to get twenty-five per cent of the proceeds. His only part would be the “stalling.” In other words, he would talk to the clerk while Jim took the package. They went separately to the Treasury Department, one morning about eleven o’clock, to do the job. The congressman, who was well acquainted with the clerk, did his part splendidly. Not a dozen feet away on the counter lay two packages of greenbacks. That could be told by the wrapping paper, though there was nothing visible to the casual observer to indicate how much money each package contained. One was about the size of a square loaf of baker’s bread, and the other a trifle larger. The counter was of the old-fashioned open sort, with none of the wicker windows of to-day. Our congressman deftly talked the clerk’s face away from the coveted prize, and at the opportune moment Jim slipped the larger package in the big pocket of his top-coat--a pocket that was designed for the purpose, and had been the resting-place, temporarily at least, of many a “touch.” Jim walked from the building and so did the congressman presently, having bade the clerk a pleasant adieu. Jim and his accomplice met in the former’s room at the hotel soon after, and the package was opened. There were in it two thousand ten-dollar treasury notes, twenty thousand dollars in all; but an unbeliever ought to have been within ear-shot to have heard the congressman swear! He about made the room crackle with electricity. “Why, my share won’t buy my cigars!” he cried, in angry disappointment. “Sometimes those packages, the clerk told me, contained a million dollars, in one-thousand-dollar bills.” Burns considered it a pretty good day’s work, however, and, having paid the disgruntled congressman forty-five hundred dollars, divided with his associates, and left for New York.