The twins went fortune-seeking in a more complaisant way. They were big and hardy and the world had no real terrors for them. As twins should go, they fared forth together in quest of the road to wealth. They had been told that it lay toward the West and that it grew broader as one drew nearer the land of the setting sun. The West was the place for young men with ambitions. That expression had been ding-donged into their ears by college mates from Los Angeles and Seattle ever since they had learned that these two towns were something more than mere dots on the map. They had heard so much of the two cities that they decided to try Omaha or some other place of that character before definitely putting their strength against the incomprehensibly sagacious gentlemen who were responsible for the supremacy of Seattle and Los Angeles over all other towns on the continent. As was their wont, they went about the thing casually and without worry. They could not buckle down to work until after the wedding of a friend in Chicago, a classmate at college. He had asked them to act as ushers. The twins were especially well-qualified to serve as ushers. Since graduating they had performed that service for no fewer than twenty members of the class and were past-masters at the trade. It was only fair and right that they should usher for old Charley Whistler, although the name was not quite as familiar as it ought to have been. They couldn't quite place him, but so long as he had done them the honour to ask them to take part in his wedding, they were reasonably secure in the belief that he was all right. Before leaving New York, they spent several hundred dollars on a joint wedding present, a habit acquired when they first came out of college and which clung to them through many marriages, no doubt because of the popularity of the phrase: "Know all men by these presents, etc." They were somewhat surprised on reaching Chicago to learn that Charley Whistler did not live there at all, but in W----, a thriving city not far removed from the Illinois metropolis. They could not have been expected to know that dear old Charley lived in W---- when they didn't even know there was such a place as W---- to live in. They heard all about the place from Charley, however. It seemed to be a city of distilleries. Everybody there was rich because everybody owned a distillery. "Come out and visit us," said Charley after he had told them what a wonderful place it was. "I'm so busy I can't take more than two weeks for a honeymoon. Any time after the first of June will be convenient, boys. I'll show you a REAL town." "There's only one real town," said Jefferson, his mind drifting back to Manhattan Island. "Only one," said Ripley. "Bosh! Say, how many distilleries has New York got? Answer that, will you?" "I don't know, but I'll bet ten dollars we could drink up in three months all the whiskey you can make in W---- in a whole year."