Sure enough, the very next day here come the depraved old outcast marauding round again at lunch time and et with the boys in the kitchen. He found 'em full of suppressed excitement and secret speech and careless talk about large sums of money. It must of been like sweetest music to his ears. One says how much would it be safe to count on cutting up the first year--how much in round numbers; and another would say that in round numbers, what with the expense of getting started and figuring everything down to the last cent, it wouldn't be safe to count on more than a hundred thousand dollars; but, of course, for the second year, now, why it would be nearer two hundred thousand in round numbers, even figuring everything fine and making big allowance for shrinkage. After that they handed money back and forth in round numbers till they got sick of the sound of it. They said Safety set and listened in a trance, only waking up now and then to see if he couldn't goad someone into revealing the name of this new animal. But they always foiled him. Sandy Sawtelle drew an affecting picture of himself being cut off by high living at the age of ninety, leaving six or eight million dollars in round numbers and having his kin folks squabble over his will till the lawyers got most of it. They said Safety hardly et a morsel and had an evil glitter in his eyes. And after lunch he went out to the woodpile where old Pete was working and offered him two bits in money to tell him the secret, and when old Pete scorned him he raised it to four bits. I guess the idea of any one refusing money merely for a little talk had never seemed possible to him. He must of thought there was sure something in it. I was away that day, but when I got back and heard about his hellish attempt to bribe old Pete I told the boys they sure had the chance of a lifetime. I said if there was a mite of financial prowess in the bunch they would start the price on them runt mules at one hundred dollars flat, because it was certain that Safety had struck the skids. Next day it looked better than ever. Safety not only appeared in the afternoon but he brought me a quart jar of honey from his own bees. Any one not having looked up his criminal record would little understand what this meant. I pretended to be too busy to be startled at the gift, which broke thirty years of complete inactivity in that line. I looked worried and important with a litter of papers on my desk and seemed to have no time to waste on callers. He mentioned mules once or twice with no effect whatever, then says he hears I'm going into a new line that seems like it might have a few dollars in it, and he hopes I won't lose my all, because so many things nowadays look good till they're tried. I was crafty. I said I might be going into a new line, then again it might be nothing but idle talk and he better not believe everything he hears.