then, if you've got any investment in 'em you want to get it out mighty quick, for they are no orchids. I was pretty well on my uppers, after a bad season on the road, when a guy named Merritt came to me and said he could get a fine snake cheap, and he thought we might make some money out of him by showing him to the Rubes at the county fairs.

"What I didn't know about snakes would have filled a book, but when I saw this one I knew it was a bargain. It was the blamedest biggest snake that ever gave a wriggle, and the only reason its owners had not made a fortune was because it was never properly advertised. I used to know just how much he weighed and how long he was, but my brain got so tired figuring up the money we made out of him that I've had no memory for figures since.

"Well, as I said, I was pretty hard up, but I had this sparkler left for 'fall money,' and when I saw that snake I pushed it over my uncle's counter." He pointed to a large yellow diamond in his scarf, and the Stranger tried to make a mental calculation of a pawnbroker's valuation of it.

"Merritt managed to dig up some mazuma, and we chipped in fifty apiece and became the proud possessors of Big Pete. If I had been wise to the business I would have known there was something wrong to make him sell so cheap, but we more than got our money back out of him the first week, so we had no kick coming. The newspaper boys were good to us and gave us a lot of space, and we were playing on velvet and had Pete besides. It was such a cinch that Merritt, who looked after the snake while I did the spieling and sold tickets on the front, commenced to get worried for fear we should lose him.

"'Jim,' says he to me one morning when business was a little dull, 'I believe there's something phony about the blame snake. He won't eat and I've tempted him with the best I could get. I guess I'll run down to the Bowery and get one of those snake sharps to come up and have a look at him; I believe his teeth need filling.'

"Just two little red dots on the back of his hand."

"I knew he was stuck on a girl that was doing a turn in a music hall down that way, but business was dull, so I let him go without raising a holler. The next day he comes back with a jaw-carpenter who claimed he knew all about snakes and when he gets through looking at Pete's mouth we felt pretty blue.

"'Canker!' says he. 'Your little snakelet may live a month.'

"Well, that put it up to us to get busy, so I did the spieling on the outside until my voice gave out, and Merritt lied on the inside until he was black in the face, telling the Rubes about how many sheep old Pete swallowed every week. We had a lot of rabbits and doves with him in the cage, hopping and flying around behind the thick glass front, and they were real sociable with old Pete, who never batted an eye at 'em. At the end of the month he was looking pretty thin and we were afraid he would peg out any day. It was hard luck on us, for things were coming our way and our bank rolls were getting good and plenty thick and they were all 'yellow boys,' from the case card to the wrapper. Our wads grew fatter as Pete grew thinner, and we were looking for some easy mark to unload him onto, when one morning Merritt comes running out, just as I was staving off a farmer who had heard him lie and brought around a flock of scabby sheep to sell to us for snake food.

"'Jim,' he yells, grabbing me by the shoulders and waltzing around like a whirling dervish, 'we'll make Vanderbilt and Rockefeller look like thirty cents; old Pete has swallowed every blame pigeon and rabbit in the coop.'

"It seemed too good to be true, but when I went to have a look there was not a feather nor a piece of fur to be seen and old Pete was examining all the corners of the cage to see that he hadn't overlooked a bit. He looked a whole lot better already, and Merritt and I began to discuss what we should do with all our money.

"But say, there was one thing we forgot to reckon on—the appetite he had been saving for about a year, and although the money came in faster than ever, most of it went out to the rabbit men and pigeon fanciers.

"You know that when a snake swallows an animal you can see the bulge in him for a long time, but you couldn't see any in old Pete. He was just the same size all the way from his nose to the tip of his tail, for there was no space between the animals.

"Things began to look pretty serious for us, for we had used up all the available small live stock in the surrounding country, and the Rubes got onto the fact that we were up against their game and raised the ante on us for what was left. It's like taking candy from a child to sell a gold brick to a farmer, but he everlastingly gets back at you if you have to buy any of his produce. Hungry Joe and the man who invented the green-goods game would be skinned to death if they had to buy a dozen eggs from one of 'em.

"And all the time old Pete kept a constant procession of small animals moving down his throat, regardless of expense, and if the supply ran short he would look at Merritt so reproachfully that it made him feel so bad he couldn't deliver his lecture for sobs. He worked the pathetic on him, but if I came around there was no 'Only three grains of corn, mother,' expression on his face; he would just rear up on his tail and lambaste that glass trying to get at me. I had been living pretty well during our prosperity and I guess I looked good to him, so rather than have any hard feelings about it I stuck closer than ever to the front of the house.

"We had rented a frame building in a little town up on the Hudson and were showing him off in good form. Business was rushing and we had the S. R. O. sign out all the time, but snake food was getting scarcer than boiled lobsters during the cold snap last winter. The show had closed up for night and we were trying to make dents in the front of the tavern bar with our breast bones and laying in a stock of supplies, in case old Pete should bite us.

"While we were discussing the best way to stimulate the rabbit-breeding industry, 'biff—boom—bang,' went the town bell and the barkeep commenced to peel off his coat and get into a red flannel shirt and a fireman's helmet. It was one of those towns where they have a dude volunteer fire department, which the boys all join for the socials in the winter and to look pretty on the annual parade day. Merritt and I didn't hurry any; we knew that it would take some time for the chief, who kept the town drug store, to get into his red shirt and shiny boots and select the bouquet to carry in the big end of his speaking trumpet. Pretty soon, 'Always Ready, Ever Faithful, Hose Company Number One,' which comprised the department, came down the street, all of the company shouting orders through trumpets at the two coons who were pulling the cart.

"Of course, we went along to see the 'Fighting the Flames' show, but say: the joke was on us, for it was our theater which provided it. There wasn't anything left to burn and the hose company marched proudly back. Poor old Pete was nothing but a heap of ashes and Merritt looked sorrowful.

"'Jim,' says he, 'let's copper the rabbit market before they get wise.'"

"Did you have no insurance?" asked the Stranger sympathetically.

"Not a blame cent," replied his companion as he rose to go to bed.