"Why, sir, if I understand Mr. Rogers aright, your correspondence with him was to the extent of only a half dozen letters at most; and you are not sure at that, it would seem, from what he says you wrote him, that you have found the veritable Frederic Hague. Suppose you divide up your bill—charge some reasonable sum for the services you have rendered, and let the rest of the five hundred remain contingent on your presenting to Mr. Rogers the real Mr. Hague?" said I. This seemed to open up to him a new vision of things.
"Well, I will," said he; "give me two hundred and fifty dollars down, and I will wait for the rest till I produce Mr. Hague."
"Are these your best terms?"
"Yes; I must be paid for my services, and Mr. Rogers can afford to pay, for he'll make Hague pay the bill finally, of course."
"I will report to Mr. Rogers," said I, "and will let you hear from me in a few days at most," I said. "Good day, sir."
He bade me a very pleasant day, hoped I'd have a pleasant ride back to St. Louis, and that our acquaintance, "so pleasantly inaugurated" (to use his own words), would continue, etc., in a most fascinating way, as if he felt that his little scheme for putting five hundred new dollars in his pocket was already a confirmed success.
But I had no notion at all that Mr. Rogers would suffer himself to be bled to the tune of two hundred and fifty dollars on a decided uncertainty, and two hundred and fifty more, too, on another uncertainty; and as that little word "now" had not escaped my notice, I thought best to institute some inquiries in the village about this Mr. Hague before I left. So, returning to the little hotel, where I stopped, I inquired about the lawyer in the place and vicinity, and soon found out who among them was this lawyer's greatest foe,—the thing I wished to learn; and finding that he lived in an adjoining town, about five miles away, I procured a horse and rode over there to consult him. He was quite the opposite of the other in personal appearance. Mr. John Howe (now dead, I hear with regret, for he was one of those men who ought to live always) was a frank, open-hearted, sturdy man, of fine intellect, scorning to do mean things, and was, by nature, the uncompromising foe of such men as the one I had just left. So I found him, and the more I talked with him the less homely he grew to my eye; for I confess he was called, in the vernacular of that quarter, "the homeliest man, by a heap, around these yere diggings." But he was good, and that's "better than riches."
I told him my story. He wasn't at all surprised at the lawyer's exactions, and told me that he doubted anybody's being about there by the name of Hague. Said that he had seen a man in the lawyer's office some three months before that would answer the description I gave of Hague, as to age, etc., but said I would find he was known by some other name; that the lawyer had doubtless picked him up on speculation, having probably seen one of the advertisements, and that Hague himself was in his power, and had probably been induced to change his name. He said the lawyer had a plantation in Arkansas, and occasionally went down to New Orleans. So that it would not be strange if he had encountered "Hague" somewhere, and brought him home, and made a sort of servant of him, while he was carrying on the correspondence. The man he had in his office was a wreck, and in his poverty easily controllable.
Mr. Howe agreed to make all inquiry possible into the matter at once, and I went back to the village; and making sundry acquaintances, I inquired after new comers, and eventually found that there was occasionally in the village, and sometimes with the lawyer, a fellow called John Dinsmore, who, on a drunken occasion, two months or so before, had boasted that he was the ward of an English lord, and had large estates in England, and that he was going back, by and by, with Squire —— (the lawyer) to get his property. This was considered a drunken man's idle boast, and would have been forgotten but for my inquiry. I found out what persons had been most seen with this John,—for I was sure he was the man I wanted to find—and left some money in my informant's hands to encourage him in "the field of research," and instructed him to find out in as adroit a way as he could, where John could be found; and back I went to St. Louis, to see Mr. Rogers. I told him of my visit to the lawyer, and its results, without stating at first what I had subsequently done.
As I expected, Mr. Rogers was very wroth; but finally said, he supposed he would have to pay the five hundred dollars; he had come too far to lose his game now, he said. Whereupon I told him I hoped we should be able to avoid the exaction, and "take in" the lawyer—play a sharp game on him; and told him what further I had learned. The old man brightened up, and said he'd rather spend two hundred pounds, in his own way, than be swindled out of a hundred; and told me to "go ahead," and take my own time for a while. I went back to Warren County, and got scent of my man. A boon companion of his had told my "spy" that John had gone off to the lawyer's plantation in Arkansas, where he was a sort of supernumerary overseer; but where the plantation lay, nobody knew within nearer than fifty miles; at least my man could get no definite information. So I instructed my friend how to act, and sent him over to the lawyer's with a statement that a cousin of his (my friend) had got it into his head to buy out a plantation somewhere in Arkansas; that he had a plenty of money, and wanted a good plantation, and would stock it well; that he was coming down from Lewis County in a few days, and wanted him to go on "prospecting" with him. Could the lawyer give him any idea of where such a plantation could be found?