The Virtuous Plotters

"I met him in Montana with the most gorgeously atrocious person I've
ever encountered--one Pinky Westlake, or some such a name--positively, a
crook! He tried to get Boltwood and myself interested in the commonest
kind of a mining swindle--hinted that we were to join him in cheating
the public. And this Daggett was his partner--they actually traveled
together. But I do want to be just. I'm not sure that Daggett was
aware of his partner's dishonesty. That isn't what worries me about the
lad. It's his utter impossibility. He's as crude as iron-ore. When he's
being careful, he may manage to be inconspicuous, but give him the
chance---"Really, I'm not exaggerating when I say that at thirty-five he'll be
dining in his shirt-sleeves, and sitting down to read the paper with his
shoes off and feet up on the table. But Claire--you know what a dear
Quixotic soul she is--she fancies that because this fellow repaired a
puncture or something of the sort for her on the road, she's indebted
to him, and the worse he is, the more she feels that she must help him.
And affairs of that kind---- Oh, it's quite too horrible, but there have
been cases, you know, where girls as splendid and fine and well-bred as
Claire herself have been trapped into low marriages by their loyalty to
cadging adventurers!"

"Oh!" groaned Mrs. Gilson; and "Good Lord!" lamented Mr. Gilson,
delighted by the possibility of tragedy; and "Really, I'm not
exaggerating," said Jeff enthusiastically.

"What are we going to do?" demanded Mrs. Gilson; while Mr. Gilson, being
of a ready and inventive mind, exclaimed, "By Jove, you ought to kidnap
her and marry her yourself, Jeff!"