THE IMPRACTICAL MAN
BY ELLIOTT FLOWER
Author of “Policeman Flynn,” etc.
WITH PICTURES BY F. R. GRUGER
“I AM sorry to inform you,” said Shackelford, the lawyer, “that you have been to some trouble and expense to secure a bit of worthless paper. This—” and he held up the document he had been examining—“is about as valuable as a copy of a last week’s newspaper.”
It is possible that Shackelford really regretted the necessity of conveying this unpleasant information to Peter J. Connorton, Cyrus Talbot, and Samuel D. Peyton; but, if so, his looks belied him, for he smiled very much as if he found something gratifying in the situation.
Connorton was the first to recover from the shock.
“Then it’s a swindle!” he declared hotly. “We’ll get that fellow Hartley! He’s a crook! We’ll make him—”
“Oh, no,” interrupted Shackelford, quietly, “it’s no swindle. According to your own story, you prepared the paper yourself and paid him for his signature to it.”