And say, before he can get his breath or duck under the table, I’ve spread out the blue-prints and am shootin’ the prospectus stuff into him at the rate of two hundred words to the minute.

Yes, I must admit I was feedin’ him a classy spiel, and I was just throwin’ the gears into high-high for a straightaway spurt when all of a sudden I gets the hunch I ain’t makin’ half the hit I hoped I was.  It’s no false alarm, either.  T. Waldo’s gaze is gettin’ sterner every minute, and he seems to be stiffenin’ from the neck down.

“I say,” he breaks in, “are—­are you trying to sell me something?”

“Me?” says I.  “Gosh, no!  I hadn’t quite got to that part, but my idea is to give you a chance to unload something on us.  This Apache Creek land of yours.”

“Really,” says Waldo, “I don’t follow you at all.  My land?”

“Sure!” says I.  “All this shaded pink.  That’s yours, you know.  And as it lays now it’s about as useful as an observation car in the subway.  But if you’ll swap it for preferred stock in our power company—­”

“No,” says he, crisp and snappy.  “I owned some mining stock once, and it was a fearful nuisance.  Every few months they wanted me to pay something on it, until I finally had to burn the stuff up.”

“That’s one way of gettin’ rid of bum shares,” says I.  “But look; this is no flimflam gold mine.  This is sure-fire shookum—­a sound business proposition backed by one of the—­”

“Pardon me,” says T. Waldo, glarin’ annoyed through the big panes, “but I don’t care to have shares in anything.”

“Oh, very well,” says I.  “We’ll settle on a cash basis, then.  Now, you’ve got no use for that tract.  We have.  Course, we can get other land just as good, but yours is the handiest.  If you’ve ever tried to wish it onto anyone, you know you couldn’t get a dollar an acre.  We’ll give you five.”

“Please go away,” says he.

“Make it six,” says I.  “Now, that tract measures up about—­”

“Tidman,” cuts in Mr. Pettigrew, “could you manage to make this young man understand that I don’t care to be bothered with such rot?”

Tidman didn’t have a chance.

“Excuse me,” says I, flashin’ Old Hickory’s ten thousand dollar check, “but if there’s anything overripe about that, just let me know.  That’s real money, that is.  If you want it certified I’ll—­”

“Stop,” says T. Waldo, holdin’ up his hand like I was the cross-town traffic.  “You must not go on with this silly business chatter.  I am not in the least interested.  Besides, you are interrupting my tutoring period.”

“Your which?” says I, gawpin’.

“Mr. Tidman,” he goes on, “is my private tutor.  He helps me to study from ten to two every day.”

“Gee!” says I.  “Ain’t you a little late gettin’ into college?”

Waldo sighs weary.