Page:The Gentle Grafter (1908).djvu/66

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THE GENTLE GRAFTER

happen? Did he get in through the window and appoint himself?’

“‘I wired to Frisco for him a week ago,’ says Andy. ‘In ordering the faculty we seemed to have overlooked the chair of mathematics.’

“‘A good thing we did,’ says I. ‘We can pay his salary two weeks, and then our philanthropy will look like the ninth hole on the Skibo golf links.’

“‘Wait a while,’ says Andy, ‘and see how things turn out. We have taken up too noble a cause to draw out now. Besides, the further I gaze into the retail philanthropy business the better it looks to me. I never thought about investigating it before. Come to think of it now,’ goes on Andy, ‘all the philanthropists I ever knew had plenty of money. I ought to have looked into that matter long ago, and located which was the cause and which was the effect.’

“I had confidence in Andy’s chicanery in financial affairs, so I left the whole thing in his hands. The University was flourishing fine, and me and Andy kept our silk hats shined up, and Floresville kept on heaping honors on us like we was millionaires instead of almost busted philanthropists.

“The students kept the town lively and prosperous. Some stranger came to town and started a faro bank over the Red Front livery stable, and began to

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