“Oil City, Pennsylvania:
“Have not struck the oil yet in any quantities. The well now is proving everything bad; but fear a regular duster.
“Arthur Dale.”
“Well, if that isn’t one of the clumsiest despatches I ever read,” soliloquized the oil scout. “He seems to have tried to work in all the words he could. How absurd to send news like that, twenty-four hours after all the world knew it. I should say that the old Colonel was a little off his base. Perhaps his disappointment has affected his mind. I must drop in on Sims and congratulate him on getting such early information. I’ll make him repay me the money I spent on that telegram, too.”
Then the scout dismissed the subject from his mind, and turned to the morning paper in which, among other items of oil news, he read of the collapse of the Dale-Dustin mystery, and found himself spoken of in highly complimentary terms as having been the first to discover its true condition.
“That’s the ticket,” he said to himself, “and it certainly ought to induce a raise of salary. I shall take care that my bosses see that notice, and if they don’t come down with something handsome, it won’t be my fault or because their duty is not made clear to them.”
About three o’clock that afternoon, after having stopped at several other places, the scout reached Oil City, and sauntered into the office of R. Sims, broker.
“How are you, Sims?” he inquired carelessly, throwing himself into an arm-chair. “What’s the latest from Dale-Dustin?”
“Everything is lovely there,” answered the broker, who was looking particularly happy and well satisfied at that moment.
“How’s that?”