“Bring me the time-tables of all roads leading to New Orleans,”       he ordered, “—also a cable blank.”     

       Webster had reread the letter before the servant returned with the time-tables. He glanced through them. “Henry,” he announced,       “your name is Henry, isn't it?”     

       “No, sir—George, sir.”     

       “Well, August, you go out to the desk, like a good fellow, and ask the secretary to arrange for a compartment for me to New Orleans on the Gulf States Limited, leaving at ten o'clock to-morrow night.”       He handed the servant his card. “Now wait a minute until I write something.” He seized the cable blank, helped himself, uninvited, to Neddy Jerome's fountain pen, and wrote:     

       William H. Geary,     

       Calle de Concordia No. 19,     

       Buenaventura,     

       Sobrante, C. A.     

       Salute, you young jackass! Just received your letter. Cabling thousand for emergency roll first thing to-morrow. Will order machinery. Leaving for New Orleans to-morrow night, to arrive Buenaventura first steamer. Your letter caught me with a hundred thousand. We cut it two ways and take our chances. Keep a light in the window for your old Jack Pardner.     

       “That's a windy cablegram,” Neddy Jerome remarked as the servant bore it away. “Why all this garrulity? A cablegram anywhere generally costs at least a dollar a word.”     

       “'That's my delight of a shiny night, in the season of the year,'” quoted John Stuart Webster; “and why the devil economize when the boy needs cheering up?”     

       “What boy?”     

       “Billy Geary.”     

       “Broke?”     

       “I should say so. Rattles when he walks.”     

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