“You begun this,” says Buck; “now finish it.  Over there are the books, showing every share and bond issued.  Here’s the money to cover, except what we’ve spent to live on.  You’ll have to act as receiver.  I guess you’ll do the square thing on account of your paper.  This is the best way we know how to settle it.  Me and our substantial but apple-weary vice-president are going to follow the example of our revered president, and skip.  Now, have you got enough news for to-day, or do you want to interview us on etiquette and the best way to make over an old taffeta skirt?”

“News!” says the newspaper man, taking his pipe out; “do you think I could use this?  I don’t want to lose my job.  Suppose I go around to the office and tell ’em this happened.  What’ll the managing editor say?  He’ll just hand me a pass to Bellevue and tell me to come back when I get cured.  I might turn in a story about a sea serpent wiggling up Broadway, but I haven’t got the nerve to try ’em with a pipe like this.  A get-rich-quick scheme—­excuse me—­gang giving back the boodle!  Oh, no.  I’m not on the comic supplement.”

“You can’t understand it, of course,” says Buck, with his hand on the door knob.  “Me and Pick ain’t Wall Streeters like you know ’em.  We never allowed to swindle sick old women and working girls and take nickels off of kids.  In the lines of graft we’ve worked we took money from the people the Lord made to be buncoed—­sports and rounders and smart Alecks and street crowds, that always have a few dollars to throw away, and farmers that wouldn’t ever be happy if the grafters didn’t come around and play with ’em when they sold their crops.  We never cared to fish for the kind of suckers that bite here.  No, sir.  We got too much respect for the profession and for ourselves.  Good-by to you, Mr. Receiver.”

“Here!” says the journalist reporter; “wait a minute.  There’s a broker I know on the next floor.  Wait till I put this truck in his safe.  I want you fellows to take a drink on me before you go.”

“On you?” says Buck, winking solemn.  “Don’t you go and try to make ’em believe at the office you said that.  Thanks.  We can’t spare the time, I reckon.  So long.”

And me and Buck slides out the door; and that’s the way the Golconda Company went into involuntary liquefaction.

If you had seen me and Buck the next night you’d have had to go to a little bum hotel over near the West Side ferry landings.  We was in a little back room, and I was filling up a gross of six-ounce bottles with hydrant water colored red with aniline and flavored with cinnamon.  Buck was smoking, contented, and he wore a decent brown derby in place of his silk hat.

“It’s a good thing, Pick,” says he, as he drove in the corks, “that we got Brady to lend us his horse and wagon for a week.  We’ll rustle up the stake by then.  This hair tonic’ll sell right along over in Jersey.  Bald heads ain’t popular over there on account of the mosquitoes.”