Judge — March 4, 1911 — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Bildad’s Tip on the Money VERYBODY said that Bildad was a nice fel- low, but there were times when he made an unmitigat- ed nuisance of him- self. Well mean- ing enough, he would have been one of the most popular members of the club if it hadn't been for his everlasting thirst fo: side information. If a man had anything to do with public affairs in Washington, Bildad would camp upon his trail, and, by asking all sorts of in- genious and insidiously innocent-appear- ing questions, would endeavor to worm confidential information out of him. To such an extent did he carry this that a large number of men shied off whenever they saw Bildad approaching them and set him down as a positive bore. Dubkins, however, knew how to han- dle Bildad. He was the confidential sec- retary of Mr. George W. Moneypenn. the great organizer and financier. There was little in Mr. Moneypenny’s mind that Dubkins did not know all about, and Bildad very seldom let up on him for that reason. He had a notion that sooner or later he might get some kind of a tip from Dubkins that would mal his everlasting fortune; but on such A NEAR-HEAVEN MATCH FACTORY. By HORACE DODD GASTIT. matters Dubkins was reticent, though in other respects he was frankness it- self. Confidentially he told Bildad a lot of startling things concerning the views of the money-king, letting his own imagination loose in the narration to so great a degree that Bildad was probably the repository of more secrets that never happened than any man living. It gave him no end of importance in his own mind to think that he knew all these things that were hidden from the rest of mankind, and in the smaller set in the world in which as a suburbanite he moved, he was looked upon with awe as aman who knew almost as much on the inside about Moneypenny as Money- penny himself. “Why don’t you strike Dubkins for a tip on the market?’’ suggested his neighbor, Biffles, one night. ‘‘Money- penny is going into all sorts of things all the time, and if you could get some kind of a lead on any one of his prospec- tive ventures, you'd make your immortal fortune."* “I might,”? said Bildad; ‘but, after all, I haven't any capital to back me up, so what good would a tip do me? I haven't anything to speculate with.”’ Biffles glanced anxiously around him. “Cll tell you what I'll do, Bildad,”’ he said, his voice sinking to a whisper. Market. “You get the tip and I'll supply the capital. I've got ten or eleven thousand dollars salted hands on it at ten minutes’ notice, and if you'll worm the tip out of Dubkins, I'll put up the ten thousand and we'll go away where I can lay my shares on the profits. “Half and half?” eagerly. “Half and half,”” “Share and share alike. asked Bildad replied Biffles. Why not? ee SHOULD HAVE STARTED SOONER Farmer—"' The cow won't hurt you. She's only a little playful.” Maid—''T've never played with a cow in my life, and I ‘ra not going to start now.”* comicbooks.com