He was over in Boston one summer (it was the third year of the partnership), and had been there some five or six weeks attending to a little affair he had going in that town. Rather an ancient game it was, but he’d taken advantage of conditions to rejuvenate it. “Fifty percent in forty-five days and pull out whenever you like,” was the captivating slogan set in circulation. All the boobs ask for is a new excuse. If they can’t understand it, all the better—so long as it has the sound of money. Pentecost had one for them right fresh off the bat of the World War. “International Postal Reply Coupons” was his, and it did the trick. After the prompt payment of the forty-five days’ interest two or three times, there was a rush. People blocked the corridors of the office building where the headquarters of this hoary but brought-up-to-date swindle were situated, and fought for places in the line so they could get the chance to pitch away their money. Over nine million five hundred thousand was shaken out of socks and drawn out of savings banks and pushed over to Pentecost—or rather to the dummy he’d put in as manager, for of course he never appeared in it himself. This dummy was an innocent, simple-minded Italian, or Italian-American, dug up by one of Pentecost’s men and buzzed by two or three of them till he really came to believe this “Postal Reply” business was a gorgeous and legitimate undertaking. So enthusiastic about it did he become that he set to work with something bordering on religious frenzy; and so completely did his favorable opinion of the enterprise take possession of him that when, some time later, the warning signal went up and Pentecost notified him—through his trusties—to quit at once and he’d find a high-powered car waiting for him at a certain place, the fellow refused to budge. He was perfectly sure the Postal Reply Coupons affair was a profitable and reputable undertaking, and if the owners, whoever they were, were going to give it up, he’d go on with it himself. He had clerks there who knew the way to run it. It was in vain the two men who had charge of him—the same two who’d been making a nightly clean-up of the day’s receipts, transferring the amounts to various banks in the distant cities—argued with him. When Pentecost heard of the Italian’s crazy ideas he made every possible effort to get him away. The simplicity and innocence of the poor devil hit him in the one spot where he was soft. But in this affair the time was too short. The police pounced on the Italian before Pentecost’s men could kidnap him, as they had orders to do.