The only west bound train that night was a local freight; the only west bound train in the morning was the accommodation which had brought them to Battlesburg; then came Number Two, the next afternoon. They drove straight to the Palace Hotel and met the only man in Battlesburg who was not impressed by the high honor that a lucky accident had bestowed upon the city and upon his hostelry. Suspicion, engendered by thirty years of contact with a traveling public which had invariably either insulted his accommodations or tried to cheat him--and sometimes both--had soured the disposition of the proprietor of the Palace and cramped his soul until his very beard had crinkled. Suspicion gleamed from his puckered eyes, it was chiseled in the wrinkles about his nose, it rasped in his voice; and the first and only thing he noted about Mr. J. Rufus Wallingford and his splendid company was that they had no luggage! Whereupon, even before the multi-millionaire had finished inscribing the quartette of names upon his register, he had demanded cash in advance. Judge Lampton, who had edged up close to the register, was shocked by this crass demand, and expected to see the retired capitalist give Pete Parsons the dressing down of his life. Instead, however, Mr. J. Rufus Wallingford calmly abstracted, from a pocketbook bulging with such trifles, a hundred-dollar bill which he tossed upon the desk, and went on writing. As impassive as Fate, Pete Parsons turned to his safe, slowly worked the combination, and still more slowly started to make change. In this operation he suddenly paused. "Billy," said he to the ever-present Ricks, "run over to the bank with this hundred-dollar bill and see if Battles'll change it." For just one instant the small eyes of Wallingford narrowed threateningly, and then he smiled again. "Show us to our rooms," he ordered. "Send up the change when it comes." He laid down the pen, but his hand had scarcely left the surface of the book when it was clutched by that of Judge Lampton. "In the name of the judiciary and of the enterprising citizens of this place, I welcome you to Battlesburg," he announced. Mr. Wallingford, "always on the job"--to use the expressive parlance of his friend Mr. Daw--drew himself up and radiated. "Thank you," he returned. "I have already inspected your beautiful little city with much pleasure, and all that you need to make this a live town is a good hotel." The Judge shot at Pete Parsons a triumphant grin. Ever since Mr. Lampton had been denied credit beyond the amount of two dollars at the Palace Hotel bar, himself and Mr. Parsons had been "on the outs." "Let me show you the very piece of property to build it on," he eagerly returned. Only for a moment Wallingford considered. "I'll look at it to-morrow morning," he said. "I shall have the facts and figures ready for you, sir," and Judge Lampton swaggered out of the Palace Hotel on a bee-line for a little publicity.