"What did he say?"
"He said he didn't hev no doubts but wot you was a reg'lar villyum an' swin'ler, an' cheat an' blackmailer, an' ef he had de user his eyes an' legs he'd come down yere an' han' you over ter de coppers; dat you aint smart enuff ter get no money outer him, fer he's bin bled by sich coveys like you all he's a-going ter bleed, an' dat he don't b'lieve dere is any sech ting as de Bugwug estate nohow, an' ef yer wants ter keep outen jail yer'd better let him an' his folks alone."
Mr. Jayres scowled until it seemed as if his black eyebrows would meet his bristly upper lip, and then he said: "Bootsey, before you come to the office to-morrow morning you'd better go to the Gallinipper Laundry in Washington Place, and tell a man named Tobey who keeps it, that—er—that I've gone out of town for a few days, Bootsey, on a pressing matter of business."
III.
BLUDOFFSKI.
The friends of Mr. Richard O'Royster always maintained that he was the best of good fellows. Many, indeed, went so far as to say he had no faults whatever; and while such an encomium seems, on the face of it, to be extravagant, its probability is much strengthened by the fact that whatever he had they always came into the possession of sooner or later. If he had any faults, therefore, they must have known it. They would never have allowed anything so valuable as a fault to escape them.
Mr. O'Royster was sitting, one afternoon, in the private office of his bankers, Coldpin & Breaker. Mr. Coldpin sat with him, discussing the advisability of his investing $250,000 in the bonds of the East and West Telegraph Company. It was a safe investment, in Mr. Coldpin's judgment, and Mr. O'Royster was about to order the transaction carried out, when the office door was thrust open and a long, black-bearded, wiry-haired, savage-looking man walked in.
