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say it was a joke? I think it is a very serious mat

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But at the end of half an hour's argument the con versation had been turned upon a different subject The two were considering the respective merits o pale blue and pink wall paper with which the old colonial mansion of the Atwoods in Dalesburg was to be decorated after the wedding.

On the next morning Johnny confessed to Mr Hemstetter. The shoe merchant put on his specta cles, and said through them: "You strike me as being a most extraordinary young scamp. If I had no managed this enterprise with good business judg ment my entire stock of goods might have been a complete loss. Now, how do you propose to dispos of the rest of it?"

When the second invoice of cockleburrs arrived Johnny loaded them and the remainder of the shoes into a schooner, and sailed down the coast to Alazan.

goatee and starred vest to accept his resignation, for the lotus no longer lured him. He hankered for the spinach and cress of Dalesburg.

The services of Mr. William Terence Keogh as acting consul, pro tem., were suggested and accepted, and Johnny sailed with the Hemstetters back to his native shores.

Keogh slipped into the sinecure of the American consulship with the ease that never left him even in such high places. The tintype establishment was soon to become a thing of the past, although its deadly work along the peaceful and helpless Spanish Main was never effaced. The restless partners were about to be off again, scouting ahead of the slow ranks of Fortune. But now they would take different ways. There were rumours of a promising uprising in Peru; and thither the martial Clancy would turn his adventurous steps. As for Keogh, he was figuring in his mind and on quires of Government letter-heads a

of a business proposition is something diversified tha looks like a longer shot than it is something i

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the way of a genteel graft that isn't worked enoug for the correspondence schools to be teaching it b mail. I take the long end; but I like to have at leas as good a chance to win as a man learning to pla poker on an ocean steamer, or running for governo of Texas on the Republican ticket. And when cash in my winnings I don't want to find any widows and orphans' chips in my stack."

The grass-grown globe was the green table of which Keogh gambled. The games he played wer of his own invention. He was no grubber after th diffident dollar. Nor did he care to follow it wit horn and hounds. Rather he loved to coax it wit egregious and brilliant flies from its habitat in th waters of strange streams. Yet Keogh was a busines man; and his schemes, in spite of their singularity were as solidly set as the plans of a building contrac tor. In Arthur's time Sir William Keogh woul

Three days after Johnny's departure, two small schooners appeared off Coralio. After some delay a boat put off from one of them, and brought a sun

burned young man ashore. This young man had a

shrewd and calculating eye; and he gazed with amazement at the strange things that he saw. He found on the beach some one who directed him to the consul's office; and thither he made his way at a nervous gait.

Keogh was sprawled in the official chair, drawing caricatures of his Uncle's head on an official pad of paper. He looked up at his visitor.

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Where's Johnny Atwood?" inquired the sunburned young man, in a business tone.

"Gone," said Keogh, working carefully at Uncle Sam's necktie.

"That's just like him," remarked the nut-brown one, leaning against the table. "He always was a fellow to gallivant around instead of 'tending to business. Will he be in soon?"

jectured the visitor, in a tone of virtuous conviction

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Johnny never would stick to anything long enoug to succeed. I wonder how he manages to run hi business here, and never be 'round to look after it."

"I'm looking after the business just now," admit ted the pro tem. consul.

"Are you? - then, say!-where's the factory?

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“What factory?” asked Keogh, with mildly polit interest.

"Why, the factory where they use them cockle burrs. Lord knows what they use 'em for, anyway I've got the basements of both them ships out ther loaded with 'em. I'll give you a bargain in thi lot. I've had every man, woman and child aroun Dalesburg that wasn't busy pickin' 'em for a month I hired these ships to bring 'em over. Everybod thought I was crazy. Now, you can have this lot fo fifteen cents a pound, delivered on land. And if yo want more I guess old Alabam' can come up to th demand. Johnny told me when he left home that i

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