I walked to a hotel, and was nailed. Your brother's
letter to the cashier saved me. I realised dimly that I had become
respectable, that I looked--for the deputy sheriff told me so--an
English gentleman--Mr. Johnson, your friend. That's about all."
"All?" I echoed, in dismay.
"The rest is so commonplace. I got a small job as clerk in a fruit-
packing house. It led to better things. I suppose I am my father's
son. I failed to make a living, spoiling canvas, but as a business man
I have been a mild success."
"And what are you doing now?"
"I buy and sell claret. Any other question?"
"Yes. How did you open our burglar-proof safe?"
Johnson laughed.
"My father was a manufacturer of safes," he answered. "I know the
tricks of my trade."
IX
UNCLE JAP'S LILY
Jaspar Panel owned a section of rough, hilly land to the north-east of
Paradise. Everybody called him Uncle Jap. He was very tall, very thin,
with a face burnt a brick red by exposure to sun and wind, and, born
in Massachusetts, he had marched as a youth with Sherman to the sea.
After the war he married, crossed the plains in a "prairie schooner,"
and, eventually, took up six hundred and forty acres of Government
land in San Lorenzo County.
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