Page:The Gentle Grafter (1908).djvu/87

 lions you speak of, or can I throw them out in bunches?”

“‘Your job, Mrs. Trotter,’ says I, ‘will be practically a cynosure. You will live at a quiet hotel and will have no work to do. Andy and I will attend to all the correspondence and business end of it.’

“‘Of course,’ says I, ‘some of the more ardent and impetuous suitors who can raise the railroad fare may come to Cairo to personally press their suit or whatever fraction of a suit they may be wearing. In that case you will be probably put to the inconvenience of kicking them out face to face. We will pay you $25 per week and hotel expenses.’

“‘Give me five minutes,’ says Mrs. Trotter, ‘to get my powder rag and leave the front door key with a neighbor and you can let my salary begin.’

“So I conveys Mrs. Trotter to Cairo and establishes her in a family hotel far enough away from mine and Andy’s quarters to be unsuspicious and available, and I tell Andy.

“‘Great,’ says Andy. ‘And now that your conscience is appeased as to the tangibility and proximity of the bait, and leaving mutton aside, suppose we revenoo a noo fish.’

“So, we began to insert our advertisement in newspapers covering the country far and wide. One ad was 75