dog and statues of Hercules and Father John on the lawn, and start one of the finest free educational institutions in the world right there. "So we talks it over to the prominent citizens of Floresville, who falls in fine with the idea. They give a banquet in the engine house to us, and we make our bow for the first time as benefactors to the cause of progress and enlightenment. Andy makes an hour-and-a-half speech on the subject of irrigation in Lower Egypt, and we have a moral tune on the phonograph and pineapple sherbet. "Andy and me didn't lose any time in philanthropping. We put every man in town that could tell a hammer from a step ladder to work on the building, dividing it up into class rooms and lecture halls. We wire to Frisco for a carload of desks, footballs, arithmetics, penholders, dictionaries, chairs for the professors, slates, skeletons, sponges, twenty-seven cravenetted gowns and caps for the senior class, and an open order for all the truck that goes with a first-class university. I took it on myself to put a campus and a curriculum on the list; but the telegraph operator must have got the words wrong, being an ignorant man, for when the goods come we found a can of peas and a curry-comb among 'em. "While the weekly papers was having chalk plate cuts of me and Andy we wired an employment agency in Chicago to express us f. o. b., six professors immediately-one English literature, one up-to-date dead languages, one chemistry, one political economy-democrat preferred-one logic, and one wise to painting, Italian and music, with union card. The Esperanza bank guaranteed salaries, which was to run between $800 and $800.50. "Well, sir, we finally got in shape. Over the front door was carved the words: "The World's University; Peters & Tucker, Patrons and Proprietors.' And when September the first got a cross-mark on the calendar, the comeons begun to roll in. First the faculty got off the tri-weekly express from Tucson. They was mostly young, spectacled and red-headed, with sentiments divided between ambition and food. Andy and me got 'em billeted on the Floresvillians and then laid for the students. "They came in bunches. We had advertised the University in all the state papers, and it did us good to see how quick the country responded. Two hundred and nineteen husky lads aging along from 18 up to chin whiskers answered the clarion call of free education. They ripped open that town, sponged the seams, turned it, lined it with new mohair; and you couldn't have told it from Harvard or Goldfields at the March term of court. "They marched up and down the streets waving flags with the World's University colors-ultra-marine and blue and they certainly made a lively place of Floresville. Andy made them a speech from the balcony of the Skyview Hotel, and the whole town was out celebrating. "In about two weeks the professors got the students disarmed and herded into classes. I don't believe there's any pleasure equal to being a philanthropist. Me and Andy bought high silk hats and pretended to dodge the two reporters of the Floresville Gazette. The paper had a man to kodak us whenever we appeared on the street, and ran our pictures every week over the column headed Educational Notes.' Andy lectured twice a week at the University; and afterward I would rise and tell a humorous story. Once the Gazette printed my pictures with Abe Lincoln on one side and Marshall P. Wilder on the other. We used to wake up of "Andy was as interested in philanthropy as I was. nights and tell each other new ideas for booming the University. Andy,' says I to him one day, there's something we overlooked. The boys ought to have dromedaries.' 'What's that?' Andy asks. 66 'Why, something to sleep in, of course,' says I. 'All colleges have 'em.' "Oh, you mean pajamas,' says Andy. But I never could make Andy un "I do not,' says I. 'I mean dromedaries.' derstand; so we never ordered 'em. Of course, I meant them long bedrooms in colleges where the scholars sleep in a row. "Well, sir, the World's University was a success. States and territories, and Floresville had a boom. We had scholars from five A new shooting gallery and a pawn shop and two more saloons started; and the boys got up a college yell that went this way: "Raw, raw, raw, Done, done, done, Haw-hee-haw, World University, "The scholars was a fine lot of young men, and me and Andy was as proud of 'em as if they belonged to our own family. "But one day about the last of October Andy come to me and asks if I have any idea how much money we had left in the bank. I guesses about sixteen thousand. 'Our balance,' says Andy, 'is $821.62.' "What!' says I, with a kind of a yell. 'Do you mean to tell me that them infernal clod-hopping, dough-headed, pup-faced, goose-brained, gate-stealing, rabbit-eared sons of horse thieves have soaked us for that much?" "No less,' says Andy. ""Then, to Helvetia with philanthropy,' says I. "Not necessarily,' says Andy. 'Philanthropy,' says he, 'when run on a good business basis is one of the best grafts going. I'll look into the matter and see if it can't be straightened out.' "The next week I am looking over the payroll of our faculty when I run across a new name-Professor James Darnley McCorkle, chair of mathematics; salary $100 per week. I yells so loud that Andy runs in quick. "What's this,' says I. 'A Professor of mathematics at more than $5,000 a year? How did this happen? Did he get in through the window and appoint himself?' "I wired to Frisco for him a week ago,' says Andy. In ordering the faculty we seemed to have overlooked the chair of mathematics.' "A good thing we did,' says I. We can pay his salary two weeks, and then our philanthropy will look like the ninth hole on the Skibo golf links.' "Wait a while,' says Andy, 'and see how things turn out. We have taken up too noble a cause to draw out now. Besides, the further I gaze into the retail philanthropy business the better it looks to me. I never thought about investigating it before. Come to think of it now,' goes on Andy, ‘all the philanthropists I ever knew had plenty of money. I ought to have looked into that matter long ago, and located which was the cause and which was the effect.' "I had confidence in Andy's chicanery in financial affairs, so I left the whole thing in his hands. The University was flourishing fine, and me and Andy kept our silk hats shined up, and Floresville kept. on heaping honors on us like we was millionaires instead of almost busted philanthropists. "The students kept the town lively and prosperous. Some stranger came to town and started a faro bank over the Red Front livery stable, and began to amass money in quantities. Me and Andy strolled up one night and piked a dollar or two for sociability. There were about fifty of our students there drinking rum punches and shoving high stacks of blues and reds about the table as the dealer turned the cards up. "Why, dang it, Andy,' says I, 'these free-school-hunting, gander-headed, silksocked little sons of sapsuckers have got more money than you and me ever had. Look at the rolls they're pulling out of their pistol pockets!' "Yes,' says Andy, ‘a good many of them are sons of wealthy miners and stockmen. It's very sad to see 'em wasting their opportunities this way.' "At Christmas all the students went home to spend the holidays. We had a farewell blowout at the University and Andy lectured on Modern Music and Prehistoric Literature of the Archipelagos.' Each one of the faculty answered to toasts, and compared me and Andy to Rockefeller and the Emperor Marcus Autolycus. I pounded on the table and yelled for Professor McCorkle; but it seems he wasn't present on the occasion. I wanted a look at the man that Andy thought could earn $100 a week in philanthropy that was on the point of making an assignment. "The students all left on the night train; and the town sounded as quiet as the campus of a correspondence school at midnight. When I went to the hotel I saw a light in Andy's room and I opened the door and walked in. "There sat Andy and the faro dealer at a table dividing a two-foot high stack of currency in thousand-dollar packages. "Correct,' says Andy. "Thirty-one thousand apiece. Come in, Jeff,' says he. "This is our share of the profits of the first half of the scholastic term of the World's University, incorporated and philanthropated. Are you convinced now,' says Andy, 'that philanthropy when practiced in a business way is an art that blesses him who gives as well as him who receives?' "'Great!' says I, feeling fine. 'I'll admit you are the doctor this time.' "We'll be leaving on the morning train,' says Andy. You'd better get your collars and cuffs and press clippings together.' "'Great!' says I. 'I'll be ready. But, Andy,' says I, 'I wish I could have met that Professor James Darnley McCorkle before he went. I had a curiosity to know that man.' "That'll be easy,' says Andy, turning around to the faro dealer. "Jim,' says Andy, 'shake hands with Mr. Peters.'" THE HAND THAT RILES THE WORLD "MANY of our great men," said I (apropos of many things), "have declared that they owe their success to the aid and encouragement of some brilliant woman." "I know," said Jeff Peters. "I've read in history and mythology about Joan of Arc and Mme. Yale and Mrs. Caudle and Eve and other noted females of the past. But, in my opinion, the woman of to-day is of little use in politics or business. What's she best in, anyway?-men make the best cooks, milliners, nurses, housekeepers, stenographers, clerks, hair-dressers and launderers. About the only job left that a woman can beat a man in is female impersonator in vaudeville." "I would have thought," said I, "that occasionally, anyhow, you would have found the wit and intuition of woman valuable to you in your lines of-erbusiness." "Now, wouldn't you," said Jeff, with an emphatic nod-"wouldn't you have imagined that? But a woman is an absolutely unreliable partner in any straight swindle. She's liable to turn honest on you when you are depending upon her most. I tried 'em once." "Bill Humble, an old friend of mine in the Territories, conceived the illusion that he wanted to be appointed United States Marshal. At that time me and Andy was doing a square, legitimate business of selling walking canes. If you unscrewed the head of one and turned it up to your mouth a half pint of good rye whiskey would go trickling down your throat to reward you for your act of intelligence. The deputies was annoying me and Andy some, and when Bill spoke to me about his officious aspirations, I saw how the appointment as Marshal might help along the firm of Peters & Tucker. Jeff,' says Bill to me, 'you are a man of learning and education, besides having knowledge and information concerning not only rudiments but facts and attainments.' " 'I do,' says I, 'and I have never regretted it. I am not one,' says I, 'who would cheapen education by making it free. Tell me,' says I, 'which is of the most value to mankind, literature or horse racing?' "Why-er-, playing the po-I mean, of course, the poets and the great writers have got the call, of course,' says Bill. "Exactly,' says I. Then why do the master minds of finance and philan thropy,' says I, ‘charge us $2 to get into a race-track and let us into a library free? Is that distilling into the masses,' says I, 'a correct estimate of the relative value of the two means of self-culture and disorder?' "You are arguing outside of my faculties of sense and rhetoric,' says Bill. "What I wanted you to do is to go to Washington and dig out this appointment for me. I haven't no ideas of cultivation and intrigue. I'm a plain citizen and I need the job. I've killed seven men,' says Bill; I've got nine children; I've been a good Republican ever since the first of May; I can't read nor write, and I see no reason why I ain't illegible for the office. And I think your partner, Mr. Tucker,' goes on Bill, 'is also a man of sufficient ingratiation and connected system of mental delinquency to assist you in securing the appointment. I will give you preliminary,' says Bill, $1,000 for drinks, bribes and carfare in WashingIf you land the job I will pay you $1,000 more, cash down, and guarantee you impunity in boot-legging whiskey for twelve months. Are you patriotic to the West enough to help me put this thing through the White-washed Wigwam of the Great Father of the most eastern flag station of the Pennsylvania Railroad?' says Bill. ton. "Well, I talked to Andy about it, and he liked the idea immense. Andy was a man of an involved nature. He was never content to plod along, as I was, selling to the peasantry some little tool like a combination steak beater, shoe horn, marcel waver, monkey wrench, nail file, potato masher and Multum in Parvo tuning fork. Andy had the artistic temper, which is not to be judged as a preacher's or a moral man's is by purely commercial deflections. So we accepted Bill's offer, and strikes out for Washington. "Says I to Andy, when we get located at a hotel on South Dakota Avenue, G. S. S. W. Now Andy, for the first time in our lives we've got to do a real dishonest act. Lobbying is something we've never been used to; but we've got to scandalize ourselves for Bill Humble's sake. In a straight and legitimate business,' says I, 'we could afford to introduce a little foul play and chicanery, but in a disorderly and heinous piece of malpractice like this it seems to me that the straightforward and aboveboard way is the best. I propose,' says I, 'that we hand over $500 of this money to the chairman of the national campaign committee, get a receipt, lay the receipt on the President's desk and tell him about Bill. The President is a man who would appreciate a candidate who went about getting office that way instead of pulling wires. "Andy agreed with me, but after we talked the scheme over with the hotel clerk we give that plan up. He told us that there was only one way to get an appointment in Washington, and that was through a lady lobbyist. He gave us the address of one he recommended, a Mrs. Avery, who he said was high up in sociable and diplomatic rings and circles. "The next morning at 10 o'clock me and Andy called at her hotel, and was shown up to her reception room. "This Mrs. Avery was a solace and a balm to the eyesight. She had hair the color of the back of a twenty-dollar gold certificate, blue eyes and a system of beauty that would make the girl on the cover of a July magazine look like a cook on a Monongahela coal barge. "She had on a low necked dress covered with silver spangles, and diamond rings and ear bobs. Her arms was bare; and she was using a desk telephone with one hand, and drinking tea with the other. "'Well, boys,' says she after a bit, 'what is it?' "I told her in as few words as possible what we wanted for Bill, and the price we could pay. "Those western appointments,' says she, ‘are easy. Le'me see, now,' says she, 'who could put that through for us. No use fooling with Territorial delegates. I guess,' says she, 'that Senator Sniper would be about the man. He's from somewheres in the West. Let's see how he stands on my private menu card.' She takes some papers out of a pigeonhole with the letter 'S' over it. "'Yes,' says she, he's marked with a star; that means "ready to serve." Now, let's see. "Age 55; married twice; Presbyterian, likes blondes, Tolstoi, poker and stewed terrapin; sentimental at third bottle of wine." Yes,' she goes on, I am sure I can have your friend, Mr. Bummer, appointed Minister to Brazil.' Humble,' says I: 'And United States Marshal was the berth.' "Oh, yes,' says Mrs. Avery. I have so many deals of this sort I sometimes get them confused. Give me all the memoranda you have of the case, Mr. Peters, and come back in four days. I think it can be arranged by then.' "So me and Andy goes back to our hotel and waits. Andy walks up and down and chews the left end of his mustache. he. "A woman of high intellect and perfect beauty is the rare thing, Jeff,' says "As rare,' says I, 'as an omelet made from the eggs of the fabulous bird known as the epidermis,' says I. "A woman like that,' says Andy, 'ought to lead a man to the highest positions of opulence and fame.' "I misdoubt,' says I, if any woman ever helped a man to secure a job any more than to have his meals ready promptly and spread a report that the other candidate's wife had once been a shoplifter. They are no more adapted for business and politics,' say I, 'than Algernon Charles Swinburne is to be floor manager at one of Chuck Connor's annual balls. I know,' says I to Andy, 'that sometimes a woman seems to step out into the kalsomine light as the charge d'affaires of her man's political job. But how does it come out? Say, they have a neat little berth somewhere as foreign consul of record to Afghanistan or lockkeeper on the Delaware and Raritan Canal. One day this man finds his wife putting on her overshoes and three months' supply of bird seed into the canary's cage. "Sioux Falls?" he asks with a kind of hopeful look in his eye. "No, Arthur" says she, "Washington. We're wasted here," says she. "You ought to be Toady Extraordinary to the Court of St. Bridget or Head Porter of the Island of Porto Rico. I'm going to see about it." "Then this lady,' I says to Andy, 'moves against the authorities at Washing |