"Ninety-seven dollars, besides the fine," said Wallingford, counting it up. "Suppose we say a hundred and fifty to cover all expenses, and about three hundred and fifty for you. How would that do?" "Fine!" agreed Harvey. "Stay right here and keep me busy at the price." "Not me," said Wallingford warmly. "I only did this because I was peevish. I don't like this kind of money. It may not be honest money. I don't know how Phelps and Banting and Teller got this money." Blackie Daw came solemnly over and shook hands with him. "Stay amongst our midst, J. Rufus," he pleaded. "We need an infusion of live ones on Broadway. Our best workers have grown jaded and effete, and our reputation is suffering. Stay, oh, stay!" "No," refused J. Rufus positively. "I don't want to have anything more to do with crooks!" CHAPTER IX IN WHICH J. RUFUS HEARS OF SOME EGYPTIANS WORTH SPOILING It was in a spirit of considerable loneliness that Wallingford came back from seeing Blackie Daw to the midnight train, for he had grown to like Blackie very well indeed. Moreover, his friend from Georgia was gone, and quite disconsolate, for him, he stood in front of the hotel wondering about his next move. Fate sent him a cab, from which popped a miniature edition of the man from Georgia. The new-comer, who had not waited for the cab door to be opened for him, immediately offered to bet his driver the price of the fare that the horse would eat bananas. He was a small, clean, elderly gentleman, of silvery-white hair and mustache, who must have been near sixty, but who possessed, temporarily at least, the youth and spirits of thirty; and he was one of that sort of looking men to whom one instinctively gives a title. "Can't take a chance, Governor," said the driver, grinning. "I might as well go jump off the dock as go back to the stand without them four dollars. I'm in bad, anyhow." "I'll bet you the tip, then," offered the very-much-alive elderly gentleman, flourishing a five-dollar bill. "All right," agreed the driver, eying the money. "Nothing or two dollars." "No, you don't! Not with Silas Fox, you don't!" promptly disputed that gentleman. "First comes out of the dollar change two bits for bananas, and then the bet is nothing or a dollar and a half that your horse'll eat 'em. Why, any horse'll eat bananas," he added, turning suddenly to Wallingford. With the habit of shrewdness he paused for a thorough inspection of J. Rufus, whose bigness and good grooming and jovial pinkness of countenance were so satisfactory that Mr. Fox promptly made up his mind the young man could safely be counted as one of the pleasures of existence. "I'll bet _you_ this horse'll eat bananas," he offered. "I'm not acquainted with the horse," objected Wallingford, with no more than reasonable caution. "I don't even know its name. What do you want to bet?" "Anything from a drink to a hundred dollars."