"My own little idea," he explained, as Mrs. Wallingford smiled her appreciation of the grim humor and went to her own dainty apartment to remove the stains of travel. "A reminder of the happy times that once were but that shall be no more. I have now to figure out another stunt for skinning the beloved public, and it's hard work. I wish I had your ability to dope up gaudy new boob-stringers. What are you going to do with the farm, anyhow?"
"Save the farmers," replied J. Rufus Wallingford solemnly. "The farmers of the United States are the most downtrodden people in the world. The real producers of the wealth of our great nation hold the bag, and the non-producers reap the golden riches of the soil. Who rises in his might and comes to their rescue? Who overturns the old order of things, puts the farmer upon a pinnacle of prosperity and places his well-deserved earnings beyond the reach of avarice and greed? Who, I ask? J. Rufus Wallingford, the friend of the oppressed and the protector of the poor!"
"Good!" responded Mr. Daw, "and the way you say it it's worse than ever. I'm in on the play, but please give me a tip before the blow-off comes so I can leave the county."
"The county is safe," responded Mr. Wallingford. "It's nailed down. You know me, Blackie. The law and I are old college chums and we never go back on each other. I'm going to lift my money out of the Chicago wheat pit, and when I get through that pit will be nothing but an empty hole. By this time next fall I'll have a clean, cool million, and then I can buy a stack of blue chips and sit in the big game. I'll never rest easy till I can hold a royal flush against Morgan and Rockefeller, and when I skin them all will be forgiven."
"Jump right in, Jim; the water's fine for you just now. I'm not wised up yet to this new game of yours, but I've got a bet on you. Go to it and win."
"It's my day to break the bank," asserted J. Rufus. "Your bet's safe. Go soak your watch and play me across the board."
The telephone bell rang and Blackie answered it.
"Come right over," he told the man at the other end of the wire. "Mr. Wallingford has arrived."
He hung up the receiver and conducted Wallingford downstairs into a well-lighted room that jutted out in an "L" from the house, with a separate outside entrance toward the rear.
"Observe the center of a modern agriculturist's web," he declaimed. "Sit at your desk, farmer, for your working superintendent is about to call on you."