About four o'clock in the afternoon, Caligula, who was as , calls to me:  
"I have to report a white shirt signalling on the starboard bow, sir."
 
I went down the mountain and brought back a fat, red man in an alpaca coat and no collar.
 
"Gentlemen," says Colonel Rockingham, "allow me to introduce my brother, Captain Duval C. Rockingham, vice-president of the Sunrise & Edenville Tap Railroad."
 
"Otherwise the King of Morocco," says I. "I reckon you don't mind my counting the , just as a business formality."
 
"Well, no, not exactly," says the fat man, "not when it comes. I turned that matter over to our second vice-president. I was anxious after Brother Jackson's safetiness. I reckon he'll be along right soon. What does that salad you mentioned taste like, Brother Jackson?"
 
"Mr. Vice-President," says I, "you'll oblige us by remaining here till the second V. P. arrives. This is a private , and we don't want any roadside speculators selling tickets."
 
In half an hour Caligula sings out again:
 
"Sail ho! Looks like an on a broomstick."
 
I perambulated down the cliff again, and escorted up a man six foot three, with a sandy beard and no other dimension that you could notice. Thinks I to myself, if he's got ten thousand dollars on his person it's in one bill and folded lengthwise.
 
"Mr. Patterson G. Coble, our second vice-president," announces the colonel.
 
"Glad to know you, gentlemen," says this Coble. "I came up to the tidings that Major Tallahassee Tucker, our general passenger agent, is now negotiating a peachcrate full of our railroad bonds with the Perry County Bank for a loan. My dear Colonel Rockingham, was that chicken gumbo or cracked goobers on the bill of fare in your note? Me and the conductor of fifty-six was having a dispute about it."
 
"Another white wings on the rocks!" hollers Caligula. "If I see any more I'll fire on 'em and swear they was torpedo-boats!"
 
The guide goes down again, and into the a person in blue carrying an amount of and a lantern. I am so sure that this is Major Tucker that I don't even ask him until we are up above; and then I discover that it is Uncle Timothy, the yard switchman at Edenville, who is sent ahead to flag our understandings with the gossip that Judge Pendergast, the railroad's attorney, is in the process of mortgaging Colonel Rockingham's farming lands to make up the ransom.
 
While he is talking, two men crawl from under the bushes into camp, and Caligula, with no white flag to disinter him from his plain duty, draws his gun. But again Colonel Rockingham intervenes and introduces Mr. Jones and Mr. Batts, engineer and fireman of train number forty-two.
 
"Excuse us," says Batts, "but me and Jim have hunted squirrels all over this mounting, and we don't need no white flag. Was that straight, colonel, about the plum pudding and pineapples and real store cigars?"
 
"Towel on a fishing-pole in the offing!" howls Caligula. "Suppose it's the firing line of the freight conductors and brakeman."
 
"My last trip down," says I, wiping off my face. "If the S. & E. T. wants to run an excursion up here just because we kidnapped their president, let 'em. We'll put out our sign. 'The Kidnapper's Cafe and Trainmen's Home.'"
 
This time I caught Major Tallahassee Tucker by his own , and I felt easier. I asked him into the , so I could drown him if he happened to be a track-walker or caboose porter. All the way up the mountain he driveled to me about asparagus on toast, a thing that his intelligence in life had skipped.
 
Up above I got his mind from food and asked if he had raised the ransom.
 
"My dear sir," says he, "I succeeded in nego............