Show WRITTEN IN SMOKE Some Yankee Con cigars reached The Tribune yesterday bearing the admonition that they must never be I enjoyed save when some most important Im-portant question was under consideration II tion One was lighted and ao the smoke curled upward through the smoke a most strange phenomenon letters began to take form and then words and stranger still through the smoke a sprite appeared a sprite will no more clothing on than Puck wears and like Puck he carried a wand and perching himself him-self on the cornice under the celling with his wand he pointed to tho I words which were formed of the smoke and nodded as much as to say ° read And sure enough written plainly was this story Six months ago Yankee Con had a bad name It was like some menThe men-The world did not know what was In It or how good an accoupt it could I make ot Itself if It otvly had half a chance and so some men jeered at It and some cursed It for a fraud because be-cause the promises it had made when first introduced had never been rca llxed and the certificate of character which It brought with it seemed to have been forged But a very few men still had a little faith In It and then I they did not like to face the ridicule that would have been hurled at them I had they repudiated what at first they had Indorsed So talking low among themselves as to what It was best to I do the idea struck one of them that I though the Yankee Con had been around for a good lwhllc It had not I seemed wall and not one of them had over really tried to form a close friend I ship with It to gain Its confidence and see 1C there was really anything the nfatter with It and It was determined deter-mined then and there to make the effort ef-fort to put it through a course of treatment and to see If it could not be cured So systematic treatment was begun and kept up by day and night It was massacred with picks a great deal of face powder was applied some diamonds were prescribed a new hoist was civen it for a red wagon cars were presented to It for such coming out as It might desire an examination ex-amination was made and It was operated ope-rated upon for appendicitis its temperature tem-perature was tested dally it was frequently fre-quently bled and stony accretions were removed dally from different parts of Its body and altogether It was doctored and nursed as never was a patient before Yankee Con bore all this uncomplainingly uncomplain-ingly explaining that the treat ment seemed more sensible than that it had received from former quacks and day by day It gave away a little and a little more of Its confidence until un-til finally It made a clean breast of tho matter and Intimated that If they would look In Its left hip pocket they would find something Then they discovered dis-covered that the sickness had all been feigned that really what It had been trying to do was to keep hidden from them the treasure It carried in its pistol pocket And the moral written under the story was that The man or company that has not the pluck to work a mine for all there Is in it is not constltutdd aright Cor mining and ought to seek some other occupation By this time the odor of burning leather filled the room and the conclusion conclu-sion was that there was a good deal of rubber neck In Yankee Con after all I |