"Oh, hush up!" says she. "Do anything you like with him!" And hanged if she don't bang up the receiver at that, and leave me standin' there at my end of the wire lookin' silly.

"Talk about your freak plutes," says I to Tutwater, after I've explained the situation, "if this ain't the limit! Look what I've got on my hands now!"

Tutwater, he's standin' there gazin' hard at old Jerry Fargo, his eyes shinin' and his thought works goin' at high pressure speed. All of a sudden he slaps me on the back and grips me by the hand. "Professor,"

says he, "I have it! There is Opportunity!"

"Eh?" says I. "Old Jerry? How?"

"I shall cure him--restore his mind, make him normal," says Tutwater.

"What do you know about brushin' out batty lofts?" says I.

"Nothing at all," says he; "but I can find someone who does. You'll give me Fargo, won't you?"

"Will I?" says I. "I'll advance you twenty to take him away, and charge it up to him. But what'll you do with him?"

"Start the Tutwater Sanatorium for Deranged Millionaires," says he.

"There's a fortune in it. May I leave him here for an hour or so?"

"What for?" says I.

"Until I can engage my chief of staff," says he.

"Say, Tutty," says I, "do you really mean to put over a bluff the size of that?"

"I've thought it all out," says he. "I can do it."

"All right, blaze ahead," says I; "but I'm bettin' you land in the lockup inside of twenty-four hours."

What do you think, though? By three o'clock he comes back, towin' a spruce, keen eyed young chap that he introduces as Dr. McWade. He's picked him up over at Bellevue, where he found him doin' practice work in the psychopathic ward. On the strength of that I doubles my grubstake, and he no sooner gets his hands on the two sawbucks than he starts for the street.

"Here, here!" says I. "Where you headed for now?"

And Tutwater explains how his first investment is to be a new silk lid, some patent leather shoes, and a silver headed walkin' stick.

"Good business!" says I. "You'll need all the front you can carry."

And while he's out shoppin' the Doc and me and Swifty Joe lugs the patient up to Tutwater's office without disturbin' his slumbers at all.

Well, I didn't see much more of Tutwater that day, for from then on he was a mighty busy man; but as I was drillin' across to the Grand Central on my way home I gets a glimpse of him, sportin' a shiny hat and white spats, just rushin' important into a swell real estate office. About noon next day he stops in long enough to shake hands and say that it's all settled.

"Tutwater Sanatorium is a fact," says he. "I have the lease in my pocket."

"What is it, some abandoned farm up in Vermont?" says I.

"Hardly," says Tutwater, smilin' quiet.

"It's Cragswoods; beautiful modern buildings, formerly occupied as a boys' boarding school, fifteen acres of lovely grounds, finest location in Westchester County. We take possession to-day, with our patient."

"But, say, Tutwater," says I, "how in blazes did you----"

"I produced Fargo," says he. "Dr. McWade has him under complete control and his cure has already begun. It will be finished at Cragswoods. Run up and see us soon. There's the address. So long."

Well, even after that, I couldn't believe he'd really pull it off.

Course, I knew he could make Fargo's name go a long ways if he used it judicious; but to launch out and hire an estate worth half a million--why he was makin' a shoestring start look like a sure thing.

And I was still listenin' for news of the grand crash, when I begun seein' these items in the papers about the Tutwater Sanatorium.

"Millionaires Building a Stone Wall," one was headed, and it went on to tell how five New York plutes, all sufferin' from some nerve breakdown, was gettin' back health and clearin' up their brains by workin' like day laborers under the direction of the famous specialist, Dr. Clinton McWade.

"Aha!" says I. "He's added a press agent to the staff, and he sure has got a bird!"

Every few days there's a new story bobs up, better than the last, until I can't stand it any longer. I takes half a day off and goes up there to see if he's actually doin' it. And, say, when I walks into the main office over the Persian rug, there's the same old Tutwater. Course, he's slicked up some fancy, and he's smokin' a good cigar; but you couldn't improve any on the cheerful countenance he used to carry around, even when he was up against it hardest. What I asks to see first is the five millionaires at work.

"Seven, you mean," says Tutwater. "Two more came yesterday. Step right out this way. There they are, seven; count 'em, seven. The eighth man is a practical stone mason who is bossing the job. It's a good stone wall they're building, too. We expect to run it along our entire frontage."

"Got 'em mesmerized?" says I.

"Not at all," says Tutwater. "It's part of the treatment. McWade's idea, you know. The vocational cure, we call it, and it works like a charm. Mr.

Fargo is practically a well man now and could return to his home next week if he wished. As it is, he's so much interested in finishing that first section of the wall that he will probably stay the month out. You can see for yourself what they are doing."

"Well, well!" says I. "Seven of 'em! What I don't understand, Tutwater, is how you got so many patients so soon. Where'd you get hold of 'em?"

"To be quite frank with you, McCabe," says Tutwater, whisperin'

confidential in my ear, "only three of them are genuine paying patients.

That is why I have to charge them fifty dollars a day, you see."

"And the others?" says I.

"First class imitations, who are playing their parts very cleverly," says he. "Why not? I engaged them through a reliable theatrical agency."

"Eh?" says I. "You salted the sanatorium? Tutwater, I take it all back.

You're in the other class, and I'm backin' you after this for whatever entry you want to make."

CHAPTER XVII

HOW HERMY PUT IT OVER

What do you know about luck, eh? Say, there was a time when I banked heavy on such things as four-leaf clovers, and the humpback touch, and dodgin' ladders, and keepin' my fingers crossed after gettin' an X-ray stare. The longer I watch the game, though, the less I think of the luck proposition as a chart for explainin' why some gets in on the ground floor, while others are dropped through the coal chute.

Now look at the latest returns on the career of my old grammar school chum, Snick Butters. Maybe you don't remember my mentionin' him before.

Yes? No? It don't matter. He's the sporty young gent that's mortgaged his memorial window to me so many times,--you know, the phony lamp he can do such stunts with.

He's a smooth boy, Snick is,--too smooth, I used to tell him,--and always full of schemes for avoidin' real work. For a year or so past he's held the hot air chair on the front end of one of these sightseein' chariots, cheerin' the out of town buyers and wheat belt tourists with the flippest line of skyscraper statistics handed out through any megaphone in town.

They tell me that when Snick would fix his fake eye on the sidewalk, and roll the good one up at the Metropolitan tower, he'd have his passengers so dizzy they'd grab one another to keep from fallin' off the wagon.