With a few thousand back of him Hammond might have got to be the Borax King right then; but as it was he held onto an interest big enough to make him quite a plute, and inside of a year he was located in Denver and earnin' his nickname of Hungry Jim. His desert appetite had stayed with him, you see, and such little whims as orderin' a three-inch tenderloin steak frescoed with a pound of mushrooms and swimmin' in the juice squeezed from a pair of canvasback ducks got to be a reg'lar thing for him.
It was there he met and married the husky built head waitress and moved into a double-breasted mansion up on Capitol Hill. Also he begun wearin' diamond shirtstuds and givin' wine dinners.
"But, like others of his kind," goes on J. Bayard, "his luck didn't last. Because he'd made one big strike, he thought he knew the mining game from top to bottom. He lost hundreds of thousands on wild ventures. His long drawn out suit against Pyramid was another expensive luxury; for in the end Gordon beat him.
"It was Hammond's big appetite that finished him off, though,—acute indigestion. So that is why Pyramid leaves us this item in his list: 'The widow or other survivor of James R. Hammond.' Well, I've found them both, Mrs. Hammond and her son Royce. I haven't actually seen either of 'em as yet; but I have located Mrs. Hammond's attorney and had several conferences with him. And what do you think? She won't take a dollar of Gordon's money for herself; nor will Royce directly. There's one thing, however, that she will probably not refuse,—any social assistance we may give to her son. That's her chief ambition, it seems,—to see Royce get into what she considers smart society. Well, what do you say, McCabe? Can't we help?"
"Depends a good deal on Royce," says I. "Course, if he's too raw a roughneck——"
"Precisely!" breaks in J. Bayard. "And as the son of such a man we must look for rather a crude youth, I suppose. But in order to carry out the terms of Gordon's will we must do some kind and generous act for these people. This seems to be our only chance. Now here is my plan."
And he's comin' on, J. Bayard is! He proposes that we use our combined pull with Mr. Twombley-Crane to land Royce—for one consecutive night, anyway—plunk in the middle of the younger set. He's leased a nice furnished cottage from one of the Meadowbrook bunch, not more'n a mile from the Twombley-Crane estate, got the promise of havin' the youngster's name put up at the Hunt Club for the summer privileges, and has arranged to have mother and son move in right in the height of the season.
"In time for the Twombley-Cranes' big costume ball?" I suggests.
"Nothing less," says he. "And if we could manage to have them invited to that—well, what more could a fond parent ask?"
"H-m-m-m!" says I, rubbin' my chin. "Might get ourselves disliked if we sprung a ringer on 'em that way. Course, if this Royce boy could be trained to pull a broad A now and then, and be drilled into doin' a maxixe that would pass, I might take a chance. Mrs. McCabe could get their names on the guest list, all right. But I'd have to have a peek at Sonny first."