a thing that's never happened yet, since the Declaration of Independence,

and never will happen till these practically dead people are replaced

with the genuine article. I will restock the thrones of Europe with the

best brains and the best morals that all the royal sepulchres of all the

centuries can furnish--which isn't promising very much--and I'll divide

the wages and the civil list, fair and square, merely taking my half

and--"

"Colonel, if the half of this is true, there's millions in it--millions."

"Billions in it--billions; that's what you mean. Why, look here; the

thing is so close at hand, so imminent, so absolutely immediate, that if

a man were to come to me now and say, Colonel, I am a little short, and

if you could lend me a couple of billion dollars for--come in!"

This in answer to a knock. An energetic looking man bustled in with a

big pocket-book in his hand, took a paper from it and presented it, with

the curt remark:

"Seventeenth and last call--you want to out with that three dollars and

forty cents this time without fail, Colonel Mulberry Sellers."

The Colonel began to slap this pocket and that one, and feel here and

there and everywhere, muttering:

What have I done with that wallet?--let me see--um--not here, not there

The American Claimant