An hour later Miss Dolores Ruey, alias Henrietta Wilkins, was handed this remarkably verbose and truly candid telegram:
Denver, Colo., Aug. 7, 1913. Miss Henrietta Wilkins,
Lower 6, Car 9,
On board train 24.
Do you recall the bewhiskered, ragged individual you met on the S.P., L.A. & S.L. train in Death Valley ten days ago? He thrashed a man who annoyed you, but owing to a black eye and his generally unpresentable appearance, he remained in his stateroom the remainder of the trip and you did not see him again until to-night. He lifted his hat to you to-night, and you almost killed him with a look. It did not occur to him that you would not recognize him disguised as a gentleman, and he lifted his hat on impulse. Do not hold it against him. The sight of you again set his reason tottering on its throne, and he told me his sad story.
This man, John Stuart Webster, is wealthy, single, forty, fine, and crazy as a March hare. He is in love with you.
You might do worse than fall in love with him. He is the best mining engineer in the world, and he is now aboard the same train with you, en route to New Orleans, thence to take the steamer to Buenaventura, Sobrante, C. A., where he is to meet another lunatic and finance a hole in the ground. He has just refused a thirty-thousand-dollar-a-year job from me to answer the call of a mistaken friendship. I do not want him to go to Sobrante. If you marry him, he will not. If you do not marry him, you still might arrange to make him listen to reason. If you can induce him to come to work for me within the next ninety days, whether you marry him or not, I will give you five thousand dollars the day he reports on the job. Please bear in mind that he does not know I am doing this. If he did, he would kill me, but business is business, and this is a plain business proposition. I am putting you wise, so you will know your power and can exercise it if you care to earn the money. If not, please forget about it. At any rate, please do me the favour to communicate with me on the subject, if at all interested.
Edward P. Jerome.
President Colorado Consolidated Mines, Limited.
Care Engineers' Club.