Page:Train - Tutt and Mr Tutt (Scribner, 1922).djvu/290

 Street. Everything they did was with and by the advice of counsel. Yet not one of these active-minded gentlemen, including Mr. Greenbaum, the dolichocephalous Scherer and the acephalous Hunn, had ever done a stroke of productive work or contributed anything toward the common weal. In fact, distress to somebody in some form, and usually to a large number of persons, inevitably followed whatever deal they undertook, since their business was speculating in mining properties and unloading the bad ones upon an unsuspecting public which Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck had permitted to deceive itself.

Thus, when Greenbaum called upon Mr. Elderberry for advice, it savored strongly of Koko's consulting Pooh-Bah and was sometimes almost as confusing, for just as Pooh-Bah on these occasions was won'twont [sic] to reply, "Certainly. In which of my capacities? As First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chamberlain, Attorney-General, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Privy Purse or Private Secretary?" so the financial and corporate Elderberry might equally well ask: "Exactly. But are you seeking my advice as secretary of Horse's Neck, of Holy Jo, of Cowhide Number Five, or as vice-president of Hooligan Gulch and Red Water, treasurer of Amphalula or president of Blimp Consolidated?"

Just now it was, of course, obvious that he was