“Oh, hang it, that’s too bad.”
“Not so very bad, either.”
“Because he came down to Baltimore in the very
train I was in, though I didn’t know it in time.
As we moved out of the station I saw him going toward
the iron gate with a satchel in his hand.”
“Good; we’ll catch him. Let’s
lay a plan.”
“Send description to the Baltimore police?”
“Why, what are you talking about? No.
Do you want them to get the reward?”
“What shall we do, then?”
“I’ll tell you. Put a personal in
the Baltimore Sun. Word it like this:
“A. Drop
me A line, Pete.”
“Hold on. Which arm has he lost?”
“A. Drop me A line, Pete,
even if you have to write with
your left hand.
Address X. Y. Z., General Postoffice, Washington.
From you know who.”
“There—that’ll fetch him.”
“But he won’t know who—will
he?”
“No, but he’ll want to know, won’t
he?”
“Why, certainly—I didn’t think
of that. What made you think of it?”
“Knowledge of human curiosity. Strong
trait, very strong trait.”
“Now I’ll go to my room and write it out
and enclose a dollar and tell them to print it to
the worth of that.”
The day wore itself out. After dinner the two
friends put in a long and harassing evening trying
to decide what to do with the five thousand dollars
reward which they were going to get when they should
find One-Armed Pete, and catch him, and prove him
to be the right person, and extradite him, and ship
him to Tahlequah in the Indian Territory. But
there were so many dazzling openings for ready cash
that they found it impossible to make up their minds
and keep them made up. Finally, Mrs. Sellers
grew very weary of it all, and said:
“What is the sense in cooking a rabbit before
it’s caught?”
Then the matter was dropped, for the time being, and
all went to bed. Next morning, being persuaded
by Hawkins, the colonel made drawings and specifications
and went down and applied for a patent for his toy
puzzle, and Hawkins took the toy itself and started
out to see what chance there might be to do something
with it commercially. He did not have to go
far. In a small old wooden shanty which had once
been occupied as a dwelling by some humble negro family
he found a keen-eyed Yankee engaged in repairing cheap
chairs and other second-hand furniture. This
man examined the toy indifferently; attempted to do
the puzzle; found it not so easy as he had expected;
grew more interested, and finally emphatically so;
achieved a success at last, and asked:
