Less than ten minutes later the French-looking man with the down-east voice opened the door, tapped at the cashier's window, and told Gourley, sternly: “Here are the ten letters and the one card. They are very important! I'll be obliged, sir, if you will yourself give them into Mr. Richards's own hands. The life secret I, of course, will impart to him myself. Make haste, please. I have only five business days and three hours left.” Gourley laid the letters on Mr. Richards's desk and said, in the accusing tone old employees use when they are in the wrong: “Here are the letters of introduction from the book agent I spoke to you about. He acts damned impudent to me, but I didn't want to make any mistake.” Richards, a man of fifty, fastidiously dressed, but relieved from even the implication of foppishness by a look in his eyes at once shrewd and humorous, said, with a smile, “Well, he certainly has enough letters to be anything, even a rich man.” “Funny letters of introduction,” said the cashier--“all sealed and--” His jaw dropped. That made him cease talking. Mr. Richards had taken from the first envelope not a letter, but a ten-thousand-dollar gold certificate! The cashier closed his mouth with a click. “What the--!” he muttered. “Next!” said George B. Richards, cheerfully. He opened envelope number two and pulled out another ten-thousand-dollar bill. One after another he opened the letters until he had laid in a neat pile on his desk ten ten-thousand-dollar notes. “The letters of introduction are from the Treasury Department,” said Richards, laughing. “Now let us see whom the card is from.” “I don't care whom the card is from. I know the man is crazy,” said Gourley, in the defiant tone of one who expects not logic, but contradiction. “It is as plain as the nose on your face.” “Maybe they are counterfeit,” teased Richards; he knew they were not. The cashier snatched one from the desk, looked at the vignette of Jackson, and examined the back. “It's good,” he said, gloomily. Richards opened the eleventh envelope and took out a card. “From Amos Kidder, of the Evening Planet,” he told Gourley, and read aloud: _Dear George,--The bearer, Mr. James B. Robison, of Paris, France, a friend of Smiley, our correspondent there, asked me to recommend some highly intelligent stock-brokers. I, of course, at once thought of you. Deal with him as you do with_ _Yours,_ _Amos F. Kidder._ “Maybe it's a set of those French books that are awful until you've signed the contract and Volume I. comes, and they are not awful at all. Those fellows,” said the cashier, indignantly, “will do anything to get your money.” “You forget I've got his,” suggested Richards. “That's a new one on me, I admit,” said the cashier; “but I'll bet a ten-spot--” “I'll have no gambling in this office! Send in Mr. Robison; and if Kidder should happen in, tell him I'd like to see him.”