I was a kid. He was a kind of Bill Devery and Charlie Schwab rolled into one. But, say, you might wave enchanted dishrags and make copper bottles smoke up coon giants all night without ever touching me. My case won’t yield to that kind of treatment.”
“If I could hear your story,” said the Margrave, with his lofty, serious smile.
“I’ll spiel it in about nine words,” said the young man, with a deep sigh, “but I don’t think you can help me any, Unless you’re a peach at guessing it’s back to the Bosphorus for you on your magic linoleum.”
THE STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN AND THE HARNESS MAKER’S RIDDLE
“I work in Hildebrant’s saddle and harness shop down in Grant Street. I’ve worked there five years. I get $18 a week. That’s enough to marry on, ain’t it? Well, I’m not going to get married. Old Hildebrant is one of these funny Dutchmen—you know the kind—always getting off bum jokes. He’s got about a million riddles and things that he faked from Rogers Brothers’ great-grandfather. Bill Watson works there, too. Me and Bill have to stand for them chestnuts day after day. Why do we do it? Well, jobs ain’t to be picked off every Anheuser bush— And then there’s Laura.
“What? The old man’s daughter. Comes in the shop every day. About nineteen, and the picture of the blonde that sits on the palisades of the Rhine and charms the
