"Then, just when things seem blackest, arrived opportunity,--the Birmingham boom. I ran across one of the boomers, who was struck with the brilliant idea that he could make use of my peculiar talents in making known the coming glories of the new South. But I must join him at once, that very day. And he waved yellow-backed bills at me. I simply had to drop you and go. Mother Leary promised to take care of you for three months, or until your--well, until someone else claimed you. I sent word to them both, at least I tried to, and rushed gayly down into Dixie. Perhaps you never heard of the bursting of that first Birmingham boom? It was an abrupt but very-complete smash. I came out of it owning two gorgeous suits of clothes, one silk hat, and an opulent-looking pocketbook, bulging with thirty-day options on corner lots. One of the clerks in our office staked me with carfare to Atlanta, where I got a job collecting tenement house rents. "Since then I've been up and down. Half a dozen times I've almost had my fingers on the tail feathers of fortune: only to stumble into some hidden pit of poverty. And in time--well, time mends all things. Besides, I hardly relished facing Mother Leary. There was the chance too that you no longer needed rescuing. I'm not trying to excuse my breach of faith: I am merely telling you how it came about. You realize that, I trust?" Did I? I don't know. I expect I was just sittin' there gazing stary at him. Only one thing was shapin' itself clear in my head, and fin'lly I states it flat. "Say," says I, "you--you ain't my reg'lar uncle, are you?" Maybe I wa'n't as enthusiastic as the case called for. He springs that smile of his. "Hardly a flattering way to put it," says he. "Would you be disappointed if I was?" "Well," says I, eyin' him up and down, "you don't strike me as such a swell uncle, you know." Don't faze him a bit, either. "Our near relatives are seldom quite satisfactory," says he. "Of course, though, if I fail to suit----" He hunches his shoulders and reaches for his hat. So he had it on me, you see. Suppose you was as shy on relations as I am, would you turn down the only one that ever showed up? "Excuse me if I don't get the cues right," says I; "but--but this has been put over a little sudden. Course I'll take Mrs. Leary's word. If she says you're my Uncle Bill, that goes. Anyway, you can give me a line on--on my folks, I suppose?" Yes, he admits that he can; but he don't. And I will say for him that he states his case smooth enough, smilin' that catchy smile of his, and tappin' me friendly on the knee. But when he's all through it amounts to this: He needs the loan of a couple of hundred cash the worst way, and he wants to be put next to a few plutes that are in the market for new trolley franchises. If I can boost him along that way, it'll relieve his mind so much that he'll be in just the right mood to go into my personal hist'ry as deep as I care to dip.