_Dear Jimmie_: What a good, good son we have, and how can we ever thank you! (“Dear Jimmie” looked blank.) The black silk, so soft and rich, will make up into such a beautiful gown—much too fine for your old mother, Jimmie, but I shall be proud of it. Father is already quite puffed up with his lovely gold-topped cane. Nellie and Mary and Tom and John have divided up the pretty ribbons and books and sweetmeats to suit themselves, as long as you didn’t single them out by name. (“No—I’m blest if I did!” murmured Jim.) We were proud and pleased to get the box, Jimmie, both because the things were so beautiful and because you thought to send them. (“I’ll be hanged if I did!” muttered the hunchback, scratching his head in his perplexity.) Why don’t you come on East and see us, dear? We wish you would. Then followed bits of neighborhood gossip and family news, ending with another burst of thanks which left Pedler Jim helpless with bewilderment. It was that night that Somers was talking in the store. “Yes, he’s rich—rich as mud, they say, an’ I ain’t sorry, neither. There ain’t anyone I know that I’d as soon would have a streak o’ luck as Hustler Joe.” Pedler Jim was across the room, but he heard. “Rich! Hustler Joe rich!” he demanded, springing to his feet. “That’s what he is!” “Jiminy Christmas!” shouted the hunchback. “I’ve found him—he was the lamp himself!” XI It was in Dalton, the nearest large city to Skinner Valley, that Hustler Joe began his career as a rich man. He built him a house—a house so rare and costly that people came from miles around to stare and wonder. Society not only opened its doors to him, but reached out persuasive hands and displayed its most alluring charms. She demanded but one thing—a new name: “Hustler Joe” could scarcely be tolerated in the aristocratic drawing-rooms of the inner circle! He gave her “Westbrook,” and thenceforth “Mr. Joseph Westbrook” was a power in the city. He was petted by maneuvering mamas, flattered by doting papas, and beamed upon by aspiring daughters; yet the firm lips seldom relaxed in a smile, and his groom told of long night rides when the master would come home in the gray of the morning with his horse covered with mud and foam. But society cared not. Society loves a Mystery—if the Mystery be rich. When Joseph Westbrook’s mansion was finished and furnished from cellar to garret and placed in the hands of a dignified, black-robed housekeeper at the head of a corps of servants, and when his stables were filled with thoroughbreds and equipped with all things needful, from a gold-tipped whip to a liveried coachman, Mr. Joseph Westbrook himself was as restless and ill at ease as Hustler Joe had been in the renovated shanty on the hillside.