"Don't be a dern fool, son," Jim replied. "He knew we was arter money to develop, and when he made thet offer I warn't goin' to be sich a permiscuss Charley-hoss as to refuse. It'd be a burnin' crime not to freeze to this customer. It takes time to find customers, even for a good thing like this here, and it's bein' a leetle out of the usual run will make it slower still."
"But my people East. If Castle should get stuck he'll raise an awful howl."
Jim grinned: "He'd holler, would he? In course; it might help his business. Yer the orneriest ostrich fur a man of yer keerful eddication! Did you hear thet Boston banker what bought the Cracker-jack from us a-hollerin'? He kept so shet about it, I'll bet, thet you couldn't a-blasted it outer him."
They argued along until after midnight, but Jim carried his point; and two weeks later Thorn was in Denver, saying good-by to Kate, and listening to her whisper, "But it won't be for long, as you'll soon be able to leave business and come back East," and to Castle yelling from the rear platform to "Push the Infant and get her sizzling."
Later, as Jim and Thorn walked back to the hotel, the old scoundrel turned to his partner with a grin and said: "I hev removed the insides from the Infunt and stored 'em fur future ref'rence. Meanin', in course," he added, as Thorn gaped up at him like a chicken with the pip, "the 'lectro-platin' outfit. P'r'aps it would be better to take a leetle pasear now, but later we can come back and find another orphant infunt and christen her the Phoenix, which is Greek fur sold agin."
It took Thorn a full minute to comprehend the rascality in which he'd been an unconscious partner, but when he finally got it through his head that Jim had substituted the child of a base-born churl for the Earl's daughter, he fairly raged. Threatened him with exposure and arrest if he didn't make restitution to Castle, but Jim simply grinned and asked him whether he allowed to sing his complaint to the police. Wound up by saying that, even though Thorn had rounded on him, old Jim was a square man, and he proposed to divide even.
Thorn was simply in the fix of the fellow between the bull and the bulldog—he had a choice, but it was only whether he would rather be gored or bitten, so he took the ten thousand, and that night Jim faded away on a west-bound Pullman, smoking two-bit cigars and keeping the porter busy standing by with a cork-screw. Thorn took his story and the ten thousand back to his uncle in the East, and after a pretty solemn interview with the old man, he went around and paid Castle in full and resumed his perch on top of the high stool he'd left a few years before. He never got as far as explaining to the girl in person, because Castle told him that while he didn't doubt his honesty, he was afraid he was too easy a mark to succeed in Wall Street. Yet Thorn did work up slowly in his uncle's office, and he's now in charge of the department that looks after the investments of widows and orphans, for he is so blamed conservative that they can't use him in any part of the business where it's necessary to take chances.
I simply speak of Thorn as an example of why I think you should have a cool head before you finally buy the Lulu with my money. After all, it seems rather foolish to pay railroad fares to the West and back for the sake of getting stuck when there are such superior facilities for that right here in the East.
Your affectionate father,
JOHN GRAHAM.