“Otherwise the King of Morocco,” says I.  “I reckon you don’t mind my counting the ransom, just as a business formality.”

“Well, no, not exactly,” says the fat man, “not when it comes.  I turned that matter over to our second vice-president.  I was anxious after Brother Jackson’s safetiness.  I reckon he’ll be along right soon.  What does that lobster salad you mentioned taste like, Brother Jackson?”

“Mr. Vice-President,” says I, “you’ll oblige us by remaining here till the second V. P. arrives.  This is a private rehearsal, and we don’t want any roadside speculators selling tickets.”

In half an hour Caligula sings out again: 

“Sail ho!  Looks like an apron on a broomstick.”

I perambulated down the cliff again, and escorted up a man six foot three, with a sandy beard and no other dimension that you could notice.  Thinks I to myself, if he’s got ten thousand dollars on his person it’s in one bill and folded lengthwise.

“Mr. Patterson G. Coble, our second vice-president,” announces the colonel.

“Glad to know you, gentlemen,” says this Coble.  “I came up to disseminate the tidings that Major Tallahassee Tucker, our general passenger agent, is now negotiating a peachcrate full of our railroad bonds with the Perry County Bank for a loan.  My dear Colonel Rockingham, was that chicken gumbo or cracked goobers on the bill of fare in your note?  Me and the conductor of fifty-six was having a dispute about it.”

“Another white wings on the rocks!” hollers Caligula.  “If I see any more I’ll fire on ’em and swear they was torpedo-boats!”

The guide goes down again, and convoys into the lair a person in blue overalls carrying an amount of inebriety and a lantern.  I am so sure that this is Major Tucker that I don’t even ask him until we are up above; and then I discover that it is Uncle Timothy, the yard switchman at Edenville, who is sent ahead to flag our understandings with the gossip that Judge Pendergast, the railroad’s attorney, is in the process of mortgaging Colonel Rockingham’s farming lands to make up the ransom.

While he is talking, two men crawl from under the bushes into camp, and Caligula, with no white flag to disinter him from his plain duty, draws his gun.  But again Colonel Rockingham intervenes and introduces Mr. Jones and Mr. Batts, engineer and fireman of train number forty-two.

“Excuse us,” says Batts, “but me and Jim have hunted squirrels all over this mounting, and we don’t need no white flag.  Was that straight, colonel, about the plum pudding and pineapples and real store cigars?”

“Towel on a fishing-pole in the offing!” howls Caligula.  “Suppose it’s the firing line of the freight conductors and brakeman.”

“My last trip down,” says I, wiping off my face.  “If the S. & E. T. wants to run an excursion up here just because we kidnapped their president, let ’em.  We’ll put out our sign.  ’The Kidnapper’s Cafe and Trainmen’s Home.’”