"By Jove!" he busts out suddenly, slapping his hands together. "The thing is fantastic--grotesque--but I'll do it!" So it came to pass that the next day Guy, Jimmy Burns, and myself met by appointment in the cashier's office of the Plumbers & Physicians National Bank. As I was on my lunch hour and minutes were at a premium, there was little time squandered on preliminaries, Guy making his proposition to the thunderstruck James in simple words of one syllable. At first M. Burns refused to believe he wasn't being kidded, then he got hysterical with delight. When the startled cashier solemnly asked for his signature and handed him a bank book showing there was $25,000 to his credit in the vaults, Jimmy broke down and cried like a baby! "Now listen to me, young man," I tell the panting Burns when he has hid the bank book in his shoe to the open amusement of Guy and the wondering cashier. "You want to get an immediate rush of brains to the head and make that twenty-five thousand _mean_ something, because that's the last you get if you cry your eyes out! That's all there is, there isn't any more, get me? You been going around squawking about what a world-beater you'd be if you had money. Well, now you got plenty of it and we look for big things from you. No clowning, remember, you _must_ make good! Is all that clear?" Still in a happy trance, Jimmy Burns removes his cap with a start. "Ye-ye-yes, ma'am!" he gulps, the first time he was ever polite to anyone, before or since. Well, really, the effect of that $25,000 suddenly showered on Jamesy was every bit as startling as I expected--only in a slightly different way than I fondly hoped! Those pennies went right to his shapely head, and instead of stimulating his brain, why, they just _removed_ it altogether. First of all, Jimmy got a wild and uncontrollable desire to leave the art of bell-hopping flat on its back. Not satisfied to resign his portfolio in a dignified way, he kidded the guests, insulted the manager, rode Jerry Murphy till Jerry wanted his heart, and wound up by punching Pete Kift, the bell captain, right on the nose. By an odd coincidence, these untoward actions got Jimmy the gate.