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“After dinner I sat down out in the public square smoking, and apparently taking the world at ease,–but I was fretting inside to beat the band! My competitor saw me from the hotel porch. He came over and shook hands–you know we’re always ready to cut each other’s throats but we do it with a smile and always put out the glad hand.

“‘Well, Woody,’ said he, ‘you seem to be taking the world easy. Business must have been good this week.’

“‘Oh, fair,’ I answered,–but it had really been rotten for several days.

“‘Come and eat,’ said he.

“‘No, thanks, I’ve just been in. I’ll see you after. I’ll finish my cigar.’

“My competitor went in to dinner. About the time I knew he was getting along toward pie, I began to squirm. I lighted two or three matches and let them go out before I fired up my cigar. Still no Reidy had shown up. Pretty soon out came my competitor over into the park where I was. I knew that if he got his eyes on Reidy I would have to scramble for the old man’s coin. So I managed to get him seated with his back toward the direction from which Reidy would come to town. The old man always drove a white horse. As I talked to my competitor I kept looking up the road–I could see for nearly half a mile–for that old white horse.

“‘Well, have you left anything in town for me, Woody,’ said he directly.

“About that time I saw the old man’s horse jogging slowly but surely toward us.

“‘Well, now, I’ll tell you,’ I said to him, ‘I believe that if you’ll go over to the bank just around the corner, you can do some business. I was in there this morning and they asked me for a certain kind of paper that I haven’t any left of. If you can scare up something of that kind, I think you can do some business with them there. I’ll take you over, if you like.’

“I didn’t want him to turn around because I knew that he, too, would see that old white horse and that I’d never get him to budge an inch until he had spoken with Reidy if he did,–and the old horse was coming trot! trot! trot!–closer every minute.

“‘Well, say, that’ll be good of you. I hate to leave you out here all alone resting and doing nothing,’ said he.

“‘Oh, that’s all right. Come on,’–and with this I took him by the arm in a very friendly manner, keeping his back toward that old white horse, and walked him around the corner to the bank where I knew that he would be out of sight when the old man reached the public square.

“Just as I came around the corner after leaving my competitor Richards in the bank, there came plodding along the old man. Luckily he went down about a block to hitch his horse. I met him as he was coming back and carried him up to my room in the hotel. I laid my proposition before him and he said:

“‘Well, that looks pretty good to me, but I’d like to go over here to the bank and talk to one of my friends there and see what he thinks of the lay-out.’

“‘Which bank?’ thought I. Well, as luck would have it, it was the other bank. ‘Very well,’ I said, ‘I’ll drop over there myself in a few minutes and have the papers all with me. We can fix the matter up over there. I’m sure the people in the bank will give this their hearty endorsement.’

“As the old man walked across the park, two or three people met him and stopped him. My heart was thumping away because, even though the banker around the corner was long winded, it was about time for him to get through with Richards; but the old man went into the bank all right before Richards came out. Then I went over and sat down in the park. In a few minutes Richards came over where I was.