"Excuse me, Mr. Ellins," I breaks in, "but you're slippin' your clutch. Tricks! Why, he ain't even wise to what you want him to do it for. All he knows is that it's crooked, and he renigs on a general proposition. And, say, when a man's as straight as that, with the workhouse starin' him in the face, he's too valuable to lose, ain't he?" "Wha-a-at?" gurgles Old Hickory. "Besides," says I, hurryin' the words to get 'em all out before any violent scene breaks loose, "knowin' all he does about them Mutt & Mudd checks, and with what he don't know about the case, it wouldn't be hardly safe to have him roamin' the streets, would it? Now I leave it to you." Say, I was lookin' Old Hickory right in the eye, ready to dodge the inkstand or anything else, while I was puttin' that over, and for a minute I thought it was comin' sure. But while he can get as hot under the collar as anyone I ever saw, and twice as quick, he don't go clear off his nut any of the time. "Young man," says he, calmin' down and motionin' me to a chair, "as usual, you seem to be more or less well informed on this matter yourself. Now let's have the rest of it." And just like that, all of a sudden, it's batted up to me. So I lets it come, with all the details about Uncle Dudley's frosty home life, and the reformer son out West that still thinks father is makin' good. He sits there and listens to every word too. Not that he comes in with the sympathetic sigh, or shows signs of being troubled by mist in the eye corners. He just throws in an occasional grunt now and then and drums his fat finger-tips on the chair arm. "Huh!" says he. "Babes and sucklings! But I've had worse advice that has cost me a lot more. Well, I suppose an old fool like that is dangerous to have drifting around. But I don't want him here just now, either. Um-m-m! Where did you say this son of his lived?" "Just out of Los Angeles," says I. "All right," says Old Hickory. "Tell him he goes west Tuesday as traveling auditor to our second vice president. He'll bring up at Los Angeles about the middle of the month--and about that time it may happen that he'll be retired on full pay. But I'll keep this resignation, as a curiosity." Now don't ask me to describe how old Dudley takes it; for when he gets the full partic'lars of the decision it near keels him over. And what part of it do you say tickles him most? That the books don't have to be juggled! "It wasn't like Mr. Ellins to countenance an act of that sort, not in the least," says he, "and I am very glad that he has changed his mind." "Say, Dudley," says I, "you're a wonder, you are." And it was all I could do to keep from askin' him if he thought he owned the only bottle of ink eradicator there was in New York. Do I know who did fix up them entries? Well, by the nervous motions of a certain party next mornin', I could give a guess.