I've starved all my life and now
I intend making up for it."
"Been successful?" Hamar asked, winking at Kelson.
"Pretty well! Nothing to grumble at," Curtis rejoined, pouring himself
out a glass of champagne. "First of all I went to Simpson's Dive in
Sacramento Street, and started doing the tricks we discovered
yesterday. Not a soul in the place could see through them, and I made
about two hundred dollars before I left. I then had lunch."
"Why you had lunch with us!" Hamar laughed.
"Well, can't I have as many lunches as I like?" Curtis replied. "I had
lunch, I say, at a place in Market Street, and there I read in a paper
that Peters & Pervis, the tin food people, were offering a prize of
three thousand dollars for a solution to a puzzle contained on the
inside cover of one of their tins. I immediately determined to enter
for it. I bought a tin and saw through the puzzle at once. Bribing a
policeman to go with me to see fair play, off I set to Peters &
Pervis'.
"'I want to see your boss,' I said to the first clerk I saw.
"'Which of them?' the clerk grunted, his cheeks turning white at the
sight of the policeman.
"'Either will do,' I replied, 'Peters or Pervis. Trot 'em up, time is
precious.'
"Away he went, but in a couple of minutes was back again, looking
scared, 'They're both engaged,' he says.
"'Then they'll have to break it off,' I responded, 'and mighty quick.
I'm here to talk with them, so get a move on you again and give that
message.
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