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240 gin at the back-end of the story. How could you know? Have you ever known such a fool as I, Mirabeau?"

"Never," said M. Mirabeau, who had his ear cocked for sounds on the stairway.

"And so," said the Prince, at the end of the hastily told story of the banknotes and the man up the river, "you see how it is. He replies to my carefully worded letter. Shall I read it again? No? But, I ask you, my dear Trotter, how am I to carry out his instructions? Naturally he is vague. All letters are read at the prison, I am informed. He says: 'And anything you may have come acrosst among my effects is so piffling that I hereby instructs you to burn it up, sos I won't have to be bothered with it when I come out, which ain't fer some time yet, and when I do get out I certainly am not coming to New York, anyhow. I am going west and start all over again. A feller has got a better chance out there.' That is all he has to say about this money, Trotter. I cannot burn it. What am I to do?"

Trotter had an inspiration.

"Put it into American Tobacco," he said.

De Bosky stared. "Tobacco?"

"Simplest way in the world to obey instructions. The easiest way to burn money is to convert it into tobaccco. Slip down to Wall Street tomorrow and invest every cent of this money in American Tobacco, register the stock in the name of Henry Loveless and put it away for him. Save out enough for a round-trip ticket to Sing Sing, and run up there some day and tell him what you've done."