Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/218

 a hearty thump. 'You say I'm crude with the pencil, and I'll admit you are superfine. Now sketch me as neatly as possible a bow-wow, a lizard, the tooth of a water-pig, and a parrot on this strip of bark. Have 'em about a foot apart.'

"‘Why?' I gasped, grasping the pencil mechanically.

"‘Because you are now in the Tiberius Smith & Robbers' Exchange, and I'm the boss,' he thundered.

"Then, brandishing the cage, he cried: 'Can't you appreciate this is a ticker? This bark is the tape, and I'm going to give these children of evil the only real stock-exchange dope ever retailed on the Beni. Motto: In the name of American manhood live frugally, for we promoters want all the rest. We must bucket-shop our way to freedom, in other words.' Then, gliding into an excess of exhilaration, he shouted: 'What, ho, Wogo, surnamed the Bug! How goes it on the bourse '

"‘Of course we 're all crazy,' I conceded, the fever waltzing through my veins as I sketched four-footed and other junk in my best style. 'But what do you eat to get it? Let me in, old chap, so I can be happy, too.'

"‘Not a second to lose,' he whispered, in the old stage voice so replete with assurance. 'I've promised quotations. They don't know what a pencil is. Your photos will stun 'em. That pup with the