“I want a coupla guys that will look right in tall hats,” said Wrong Number. “You’ll do for one; you’ll make up fine for the Illyrian Minister of Foreign Affairs,—he’s a tall chap, you’ll see from that picture of the bunch being received at the New York city hall. Then you want a little weazened cuss who won’t look like an undertaker in a frock coat to stand for the Minister of Finance. We need four more to complete the string and they gotta have uniforms. Comic opera hats with feathers—you can’t make ’em too fancy.”
The Swede nodded. The Uniform Rank of the Order of the Golden Buck of which he was a prominent member could provide the very thing.
“And I gotta have one real Illyrian to spout the language to the delegation.”
“What’s the matter with Bensaris who runs a candy shop near where I live? He’s the big squeeze among ’em.”
“We’ll go down and see him. Remember, he don’t need to know anything; just do what I tell him. There’s a hundred in this for you, Pete, if you pull it right; expenses extra.”
“The cops might pinch us,” suggested Peterson, warily. “And what you goin’ to do about the Mayor? It says in the papers that the Mayor meets the outfit at the Union Station.”
“If the cops ask the countersign tell ’em you turned out to meet the remains of a deceased brother. And don’t worry about the Mayor. He’s been over the Grand Circuit with me and brought his money home in a trunk.”
He drew a memorandum book from his pocket and set down the following items:
Pete. 2 silk hats; five uni.
Band.
Bensaris.
Mayor.
5 touring cars.
“The honor, it is too much!” pleaded Bensaris when Wrong Number and Peterson told him all it was necessary for him to know, at a little table in the rear of his shop. “But in the day’s paper my daughter read me their excellencies be met at the Union Station; the arrange’ have been change’?”