HENRY

Happy days! Still shrinking. Have lost one hundred and forty-five pounds since last wire. Contract sure to be canceled as soon as Dorgan gets back from hurried trip to Siam. Weather very hot. Can feel myself shrink. Fond thoughts to my Gubby.

The very next day the colored butler brought Mr. Gubb another telegram.

“Fifty dollars, please, sah,” he said.

“What!” cried Mr. Gubb.

“Yes, sah,” said the negro. “That’s the amount Mistah Meddahbrook done say.”

Mr. Gubb could hardly believe it, but he wrote his check for the fifty dollars and then read the telegram. It ran:—

Excelsior! Have lost two hundred pounds since last wire. Now weigh only four hundred pounds. Every one guys me when I am ballyhooed as Fat Lady. Affection to Gubby.

Mr. Gubb was greatly pleased by this, but when, the next day, the colored butler again appeared and asked for fifty dollars Mr. Gubb was worried. The telegram this time read:—

Frightened. Have lost two hundred pounds since last wire, now weigh only two hundred. If lose two hundred more will weigh nothing. Have resumed potatoes and water. Love to Gubby.

That same afternoon the negro brought Mr. Gubb another telegram, on which he collected seven dollars and fifty cents. This telegram contained these words:—

Am indeed frightened. Have resumed bread diet, soup, fish, meat, and cereals, but have lost fifty pounds more. Weigh only one hundred and fifty. Taking tonic. Hope for the best. Tell Gubby I think of him as much as when I weighed half a ton.

A MAN WHO LOOKED LIKE NAPOLEON BONAPARTE GONE TO SEEDA MAN WHO LOOKED LIKE NAPOLEON BONAPARTE GONE TO SEED

Mr. Gubb was much distressed. He had no doubt that his Syrilla would rapidly recover a part of herlost weight, but he felt as if at the moment he had lost Syrilla. He could not picture her as a sylph of one hundred and fifty pounds. He was worried, indeed, as he sat eating his lunch in Mrs. Pilker’s mansion. It was then he heard a voice:—

“Say, are you the feller they call Bugg?”

Mr. Gubb looked up. In the dining-room door stood a man who looked like Napoleon Bonaparte gone to seed.

“If the party you are looking for to seek,” said Mr. Gubb with somewhat offended pride, “is Mister P. Gubb, him and me are one and the same party. My name is P. Gubb, deteckative and paper-hanger.”

“Well, youse is the party I’m looking for,” said the stranger. “I got a hunch from Horton, the wall-paper-store feller, that youse was up here and that youse wanted a helper. Does youse?”

“If you know paper-hanging as a trade and profession and can go to work immediately at once, I could use you,” said Mr. Gubb. “I’ve got more jobs than I can handle alone by myself.”

“Say, me a paper-hanger?” said the stranger scornfully. “Why, sport, I’ve hung more wall-paper than youse ever saw, see? Honest, when I butted in here and saw that there Dietz’s 7462 Bessie John on the wall—”

“That what?” asked Philo Gubb.

“That there Dietz’s 7462 Bessie John, on the wall there,” explained the stranger. “Don’t youseeven know the right name of that wall-paper there, that’s been a Six Best Seller for the last three years?”

“It is a forest tapestry,” said Mr. Gubb.

“Sure, Mike!” said the stranger. “And one of the finest youse ever seen. Looks like youse could walk right into it and pick hickory nuts off them oak trees, don’t it? It’s one of me old friends.”

Philo Gubb took another bite of sandwich and masticated it slowly.

“Let me teach youse something,” said the stranger, and he took a roll of the tapestry paper in his hand and unrolled a few feet. He pointed to the margin of the printed side of the paper with his oily forefinger. “Do youse see them printings?” he asked. “Says 7462 B J, don’t it?”

“It does,” mumbled Philo Gubb.

“Well, say! This here wall-paper feller Dietz—he makes this here paper, don’t he? And that there 7462 is the number of this here forest tap. pattern, see? And B J—that’s Bessie John—that tells youse what the coloring is, see? Bessie John is the regular nature coloring, see? They got one with pink trees and yeller sky, for bood-u-wars and bedrooms. That’s M S—Mary Sam.”

“It is a very ingenious way to proceed to do,” said Philo Gubb, “and if regular union wages is all right you can take that straight-edge and trim all them Bessie John letters off this bundle of 7462 Bessie John I’m sitting onto.”

This was satisfactory to the stranger. He removedhis greasy coat, threw his greasy cap into a corner, wiped his greasy hands on a wad of trimmings and set to work. When Mr. Gubb had completed his modest luncheon he asked his name.

“Youse might as well call me Greasy,” said the new employee. “I’m greasier than anything. Got it off’n my motor-boat.”

During the afternoon Philo Gubb learned something of his assistant’s immediate past. “Greasy” had saved some money, working at St. Paul, and had bought a motor-boat—“Some boat!” he said; “Streak o’ Lightnin’ was what I named her, and she was”—and he had come down the Mississippi. “She can beat anything on the Dad,” he said.

The “Dad” was his disrespectful paraphrase of “The Father of Waters,” the title of the giant Mississippi. He told of his adventures until he mentioned the Silver Sides. Then he swore in a manner that suited his piratical countenance exactly.

He had been floating peacefully down the river with the current, his power shut off and himself asleep in the bottom of the boat, doing no harm to any one, when along came the Silver Sides, and without giving him a warning signal, ran him down.

“Done it a-purpose, too,” he said angrily.

He had managed to keep the boat afloat until he reached Riverbank, but to fix her up would take more money than he had. So he had hunted a job in his own line, and found Philo Gubb.

The Silver Sides, Captain Brooks, owner, was asmall packet plying between Derlingport and Bardenton, stopping at Riverbank, which was midway between the two. No one knowing Captain Brooks would have suspected him of running down anything whatever. He was a kind, stout, gray-haired old gentleman. He had a nice, motherly old wife and eight children, mainly girls, and they made their home on the Silver Sides. Mrs. Brooks and the girls cooked for the crew and kept the boat as neat as a new pin. Captain Brooks occupied the pilot-house; Tom Brooks served as first mate, and Bill Brooks acted as purser. Altogether they were a delightfully good-natured and well-meaning family. It was hard to believe they would run down a helpless motor-boat in mid-river, but Greasy swore to it, and about it.

During the next few weeks Greasy and the detective worked side by side. Greasy had every night and all Sunday for his own purposes. Once Mr. Gubb met Greasy carrying a large bundle of canvas, and Mr. Gubb imagined Greasy was fitting a mast and sail to the motor-boat.

On July 15 the Independent Horde of Kalmucks gave a moonlight excursion on the Mississippi, chartering the Silver Sides for the purpose. The Kalmucks were the leading lodge of the town, and leaders also in social affairs. They gave frequent dramatic entertainments—in their hall in winter, and outdoors in the big yard back of Kalmuck Temple in the summer. In the entire history of the lodge there had never been so much as an untowardincident, but at eleven o’clock on the night of July 15 something frightful did occur. It spread it across the top of the first page of the “Daily Eagle” in the one shocking word—PIRATES!

The Silver Star had started on the return trip and had reached a point about two miles below Towhead Island when a rifle or revolver bullet crashed through the glass window on the western side of the pilot-house. Uncle Jerry—as most people called Captain Brooks—turned his head, stared out at the moonlit waters of the river, and saw bearing down upon him from the northwest a long, low craft. Four men stood in the forward part of the boat, and a fifth sat beside the motor. In the bright moonlight, Captain Brooks could see that all the men wore black masks. He also saw that all were armed, and that from the staff at the stern of the boat floated a jet-black flag on which was painted in white the skull and cross-bones that have always been the insignia of pirates. Even as he looked one of the men in the motor-boat raised his arm: Uncle Jerry saw a flash of fire, and another pane of glass at his side jingled to the floor.

The low black craft swept rapidly across the bows of the Silver Sides; the sputtering of its motor ceased; and the next moment the pirates were aboard the barge, lining up the dancers at the points of their pistols, and preparing to take away their ice-cream money.

And they did take it. They began at the bow ofthe barge and walked to the stern, making one after another of the excursionists deliver his valuables, and then slipped quietly over the stern of the barge; the pirate craft began to spit and sputter furiously; and the next moment it was tearing through the water like a streak of lightning.

To chase a speed-boat in an elderly river packet would have been nonsense. Uncle Jerry signaled full speed ahead and kept to the channel, where his boat belonged. Presently Mrs. Brooks, panting, climbed to the pilot-house.

“Well, Pa,” she said, “pirates has been and robbed us.”

“Don’t I know it?” said Uncle Jerry testily. “No need of comin’ to tell me.”

“They got all the ice-cream money,” said Mrs. Brooks.

“Well, ’twa’n’t ourn, was it?” snapped Uncle Jerry.

“Why, Pa, what a way to talk!” exclaimed Mrs. Brooks. “It’s like you thought it wa’n’t nothin’, to be pirated right here in the forepart of the twentieth century in the middle of the Mississippi River in broad daylight—”

“’Tain’t daylight,” said Uncle Jerry shortly. “It’s midnight, and it’s goin’ to be long past midnight before we git ashore. A man can’t get even part of a night’s rest no more. Everybody pirootin’ round, stoppin’ boats an’ stealin’ ice-cream money! Makes me ’tarnel mad, it do.”

“Pa,” said Mrs. Brooks.

“Well, what is it now?” asked Uncle Jerry testily.

“Philo Gubb, the detective-man, is on board,” said his wife. “I come up because I thought maybe you’d want to hire him right off to find out who was them pirates, and if—”

“Me? Hire a fool detective?” snapped Mr. Brooks. “Why’n’t you come up and ask me to throw my money into the river?”

Philo Gubb, although not a dancer, had been on the barge when it was attacked, because he was a lover of ice-cream. He too had been lined up and robbed. He had been robbed not only of forty perfectly good cents, but his pirate had seen his opal scarf-pin and had rudely taken it from Mr. Gubb’s tie. The pirate was, Mr. Gubb noticed, a short, heavy man with greasy hands. As the motor-boat dashed away, Mr. Gubb pressed to the rear of the barge and looked after it.

As the boat regained her speed, Philomela Brooks approached him.

“Oh, Mr. Gubb!” she exclaimed, “I’m so tremulous.”

“If you will kindly not interrupt me at the present moment of time,” said Mr. Gubb, “I will be much obliged. I am making an endeavor to try to do some deteckative work onto this case.”

“Oh, Mr. Gubb!” Miss Philomela cried. “Anddoyou think you’ll do any good?”

“In the deteckative business,” said Mr. Gubbsternly, “we try to do all the good we can do, whether we can do it or not.” And he turned away and sought a more secluded spot.

The affair of the pirate craft caused a tremendous sensation in Riverbank. Before eight o’clock the next morning every one in Riverbank seemed to have heard of the affair, and when, at eight o’clock, Philo Gubb entered the vacant Himmeldinger house, which he was decorating, he started with surprise to see Greasy already there. He had not expected to see him at all. But there he was, trimming the edge of a roll of Dietz’s 7462 Bessie John, and as he turned to greet Mr. Gubb, the detective saw in Greasy’s greasy tie what seemed to be his own opal scarf-pin.

“That there,” said Mr. Gubb sternly, “is a nice scarf-pin you’ve got into your tie.”

“Ain’t it?” said Greasy proudly. “Me new lady-friend give it to me last night.”

To Greasy, Detective Gubb said nothing. He was not yet ready to act. But to himself he muttered:—

“Scarf-pin—scarf-pin. That there is a clue I had ought to look into.”

In the town excitement was high all day. There was some time wasted while the Chief of Police and the County Sheriff tried to discover which was compelled by law to fight pirates, but the Chief of Police finally put the job on the Sheriff’s hands, and the old Fourth of July cannon was loaded with powderand nails and put on the bow of the good ferry-boat Haddon P. Rogers, a posse of about three hundred men with shotguns and army muskets was crowded aboard, and the pirate-catcher got under way.

This was, of course, Monday, and Monday the Silver Sides made her usual down-river trip to Bardenton, leaving in the morning and returning late at night. It was usually two o’clock at night when she tied up at the Riverbank levee, but this time two o’clock came without the Silver Sides. There was a good reason. As the packet neared Hog Island, about two miles below the Towhead, on her return trip, Uncle Jerry heard the sputter of a gas engine and saw dart out from below Hog Island the same low black craft that had carried the pirates before. Even before the craft was within range, the revolvers began to spit at the Silver Sides.

“Well, dang them pirates to the dickens!” exclaimed Uncle Jerry. “If they be goin’ to keep up this nonsense I’m goin’ to get down-right mad at ’em.” But he signaled the engine-room to slow down, as if it was getting to be a habit with him. One of the upper panes, just above his line of vision, clattered down as he pulled the bell-rope.

At the first volley, Ma Brooks and her daughters dashed into the galley and slammed the door. The remainder of the male Brookses made two jumps to the coal bins and began burrowing into the coal, and the three non-Brooks members of the crewdived into openings between the small piles of cargo stuff and tried to become invisible. When the pirates clambered aboard the Silver Star they seemed to be boarding a deserted vessel. They worked quickly and thoroughly. Piece by piece they threw the cargo of the Silver Sides into the motor-boat until they uncovered the three members of the crew, who leaped from their hiding-place like startled rabbits and loped wildly to places of greater safety. Half a dozen revolver shots followed them. The pirates then leisurely reëmbarked, fired a parting salute, and glided away.

The next morning Greasy appeared at work with his pocket full of Sultana raisins, and offered some to Mr. Gubb.

“Thank you,” said Mr. Gubb; “raisins are one of my foremost fondnesses. Nice ones like these are hard to find obtainable.”

“You’re right they are,” said Greasy. “Me lady-friend give me these last night. She’s the girl that knows good raisins, ain’t she?”

Evidently she was, but Philo Gubb had taken occasion to discover, before he went to work that morning, whether the Silver Sides had been pirated again, and he had learned that a half-dozen boxes of Sultana raisins had formed part of the cargo of the Silver Sides. He looked at Greasy severely.

“Your lady-friend is considerably generous in giving things, ain’t she?” he said, trying to hide the guile of his questions in an indifferent tone. “Youain’t cared to mention her name to me as yet to this time.”

“Ain’t I?” said Greasy carelessly. “Well, I ain’t ashamed of her. Her name is Maggie Tiffkins. She’s some girl!”

“You spend most of your evenings with or about her, I presume to suppose?” asked Mr. Gubb carelessly.

“You bet!” said Greasy. “Me and her is going to get married before long, we are. Yep. And I’ll be right glad to have a home to sleep in, instead of a barn.”

“A barn?” queried Philo Gubb.

“I been sleepin’ in a barn,” said Greasy. “I thought youse knowed it. I been doin’ a piece or two of scene paintin’ for them Kalmucks, and I sort of hired a barn to do it in, and so long as I had to have the barn I just slept in it. Keeps me up late,” he said, yawning, “seein’ my lady-friend till midnight and then paintin’ scenery till I don’t know when.”

“I presume you ain’t spent much time on your motor-boat of late times,” said Mr. Gubb.

“Ain’t had no time,” said Greasy briefly.

Detective Gubb, as he pasted paper on the walls of the Himmeldinger house, turned various matters over and over in his mind. His clues pointed as clearly to Greasy as the Great Dipper points to the North Star. He had decided to join the posse on the Haddon P. Rogers when she set out on her nextvoyage of vengeance, but now he changed his mind.

A barn, large and vacant, would be an excellent place in which to hide the proceeds of a pirate raid. Lest—possibly—the barn should recognize him and hide itself, Mr. Gubb first went to his office in the Opera House Building, disguised himself as a hostler, with cowhide boots, a cob pipe, a battered straw hat, and blue jean trousers. Lest his face be recognized by the barn he wore a set of red under-chin whiskers, which would have been more natural had they been a paler shade of scarlet. Thus disguised, he crept softly down the Opera House Building stairs and ran full into Billy Getz, Riverbank’s best example of the spoiled only-son species, and the town’s inveterate jester. Mr. Getz put a hand on Mr. Gubb’s arm.

“Sh-h!” he said mysteriously. “Not a word. Only by chance did I recognize you, Mr. Gubb. Now, about this pirate business—it has to stop.”

“I am proceeding to the deteckative work preliminary to so doing,” said Mr. Gubb.

“Good!” said Billy Getz. “Because I can’t have such things happening on my Mississippi River. I hate to see the dear old river get a bad name, Mr. Gubb. I’m just organizing the Dear Old River Anti-Pirate League—to suppress pirates, you know. And we want you as our official detective. In the meantime—Greasy! That’s all I say—just Greasy! Tough-looking character. Lives in a barn.”

HE WORE A SET OF RED UNDER-CHIN WHISKERSHE WORE A SET OF RED UNDER-CHIN WHISKERS

“I am just proceeding to locate the whereabouts of the barn,” said Mr. Gubb.

“That’s easy,” said Billy Getz. “Hampton’s barn—Eighth Street alley. I know, because I’ve been there. He’s doing our scenery for the Kalmuck summer show. You go straight up this street—or no,you’dgo in the opposite direction, and three miles into the country, and back across the cemetery, as advised in Lesson Thirteen, wouldn’t you?”

“There are only twelve lessons,” said Mr. Gubb haughtily and stalked away. He went, however, to Hampton’s barn, climbed in through the alley window, and searched the place.

The barn contained nothing of interest. A cot stood at one end of the hay-loft; and stretched across the wall at the other end was a canvas on which was a partly completed scene of a ruined castle, with mountains in the distance. On the floor were pails and brushes, bundles of dry colors, glue, and the various articles needed by a scene-painter. Mr. Gubb looked behind the canvas. No loot was concealed there. He returned to his office, discarded his disguise, and went back to the Himmeldinger house. Seated on the front steps, quite neglecting his work, was Greasy, and beside him sat a girl.

“This,” said Greasy, “is Maggie Tiffkins. Youse ought to know her. Mag, consider this a proper knockdown to P. Gubb, my boss.”

That night the Silver Sides was attacked by the pirates on her return from Derlingport. The nextmorning Mr. Gubb awaited Greasy’s coming impatiently, hoping for a new clue, but Greasy had none. He was glum. He had had a quarrel with Maggie, and he was cross.

“Last job of work I’ll ever do for Billy Getz and them Kalmucks of his’n,” he said crossly. “He’s gettin’ worse and worse. Them first two scenes I painted he kicked enough about: said the forest scene looked like a roast-beef sandwich, and asked me if the parlor scene was a bar-room or a cow-pasture, but when I do a first-class old bum castle and he wants to know if it’s a lib’ry interior, I get hot. And so would youse.”

For three nights the Silver Sides, now protected by the presence of part of the armed posse, was not disturbed, but on the fourth night the low, black pirate craft boldly attacked the steamer, carrying on a running fight. The pirates did not venture to board her, but the piratical business was getting to be an unbearable nuisance to Uncle Jerry Brooks. A dozen small craft were armed and patrolled the river. On the fourteenth night, when the Silver Sides was up-river on her Derlingport trip, the Jane P., the opposition steamer making the same ports, was boldly attacked by the pirates and lost the most precious part of her cargo. It was then determined to exterminate the pirates at any cost.

Once only had a steamer been attacked above the town, and this seemed to indicate that the pirateshad their nest below Riverbank, and this was the more likely as the river below town gave far greater opportunities for hiding the pirate boat during the day. There were several sloughs or bayous and many indentations of the shore-line, while above the town there was none. Above the town the shores sloped back from the river’s edge, and even a skiff on the shore could be seen from across the river. The search for the pirate vessel was therefore conducted below the town, but most unsuccessfully.

Mr. Gubb, in the three weeks during which the search went on, exhausted all his disguises and every page of the twelve lessons of the Rising Sun Detective Agency’s Correspondence School of Detecting. He was in a condition bordering on despair. Each day he donned a disguise and visited the barn, and saw nothing but scenery and more scenery. He had reached a point where detective skill seemed to fail, and where he feared he might have to go openly to Greasy and ask him whether he was the pirate, or at least go to Maggie and ask her where she had obtained the scarf-pin and the raisins. And that would not have been detecting. Nothing like it was mentioned in the twelve lessons.

A reward of One Hundred Dollars (rewards are always in capital letters) had been offered by the Business Men’s Association for the capture of the pirate craft, but no one seemed likely to earn the reward.

“Say, honest!” said Greasy, “if my boat was workin’ I’d go out alone in her and cop off them hundred dollars. Youse is a detective, Gubb; why don’t youse get to work and grab them dollars?”

“Your boat is not into a workable condition?” asked Philo Gubb.

“She’s all but that,” said Greasy. “She’s hauled up on the levee, rottin’ like a tomato. I tried to sell her to Muller, the grocery feller where Mag gets them raisins you liked, and I tried to trade her for a ring to Calloway, the jewelry man what Mag got my opal scarf-pin of, but I can’t get rid of her nohow. If I had her workin’ I’d find them pirates or I’d know why.”

“I have remembered the thought of something; I’ve got to go downtown,” said Mr. Gubb, and he left Greasy and went to question Mr. Muller and Mr. Calloway. The one admitted selling Mag the raisins, and the other the pin, and thus two perfectly good clues went bad. Mr. Gubb turned toward Fifth Street, when Billy Getz caught him by the arm.

“Come on and hunt pirates,” he said. “The good cruiser Haddon P. Rogers is going to hit a new trail—up-river this time. Come on along.”

Billy Getz escorted him aboard the Haddon P. Rogers and led him straight to the Sheriff on the upper deck.

“Sheriff,” he said, “we’ve got ’em now! This time we’ve got ’em sure. Here’s Gubb, the famousP. Gubb, detective, and after many solicitations he has consented to accompany us. We will have the pirate craft ere we return. P. Gubb never fails.”

The Sheriff smiled good-naturedly.

“Always kidding, ain’t you, Billy,” he said.

The boat started. She steamed slowly up the river, the members of the posse on the upper deck on either side, scanning the shores carefully. Occasionally the ferry-boat backed and ran closer to shore to permit a nearer inspection of some skiff or to view some log left on the shore by the last flood. Billy Getz, standing beside the Sheriff and P. Gubb, called their attention to every shadow and lump on the shore. The boat proceeded on her slow course and reached the channel between an island and the Illinois shore. The wooded bank of the island rose directly from the water, some of the water-elms dipping their roots into the river. There was no place where a boat could be hidden, and the ferry steamed slowly along. Billy Getz poked solemn-faced fun at Mr. Gubb in the most serious manner, and Mr. Gubb was sternly haughty, knowing he was being made sport of. His eyes rested with bird-like intensity on the wooded shore of the island.

“Now, this combination of paper-hanging and detecting has its advantages,” said Billy Getz, with a wink at the Sheriff. “When a man—”

Philo Gubb was not hearing him.

“The remarkableness of the similarity of nature to art is quite often remarkable to observe,” he saidto the Sheriff, “and is seeming to grow more so now and then from time to time. That piece of section of woods right there is so naturally grown you might say it was torn right off a roll of Dietz’s 7462 Bessie John.”

He stopped short.

“What’s the matter?” asked Billy Getz nervously.

“Run the boat in there,” said Philo Gubb excitedly. “Those verdures ain’tlike7462 Bessie John; theyare7462 Bessie John.”

The Sheriff stared keenly at the spot indicated by Detective Gubb’s extended hand and, turning suddenly, said a word to the pilot in the house at his side. The ferry veered and ran in toward the island. Not until the boat was nearer the shore than a front row of the orchestra seats to the back drop of a theater did the others on the boat understand. Then the trick was seen and understood. The trees of the shore were not all trees. One group was a painted canvas, copied carefully by Greasy from Dietz’s 7462 Bessie John at the behest of Billy Getz. Stretched across a small indentation of the shore it made a safe screen, unrecognizable a few rods from the shore, and behind this bit of painted forest they found the long, low, black pirate craft—Billy Getz’s motor-boat.

When the Sheriff had torn down the canvas and his men had hoisted and heaved the pirate craft to the broad deck of the ferry, Billy Getz was gone. Riverbank never saw him again, and a half-dozenof his roistering companions also disappeared completely.

“Sometimes occasionally,” said Philo Gubb, as the ferry turned toward town, “the combination of paper-hanging and deteckative work is detrimental to one or both, as the case may be, but at other occasional times they are worth one hundred dollars.”

“That’s right!” said the Sheriff suddenly. “You get that reward, don’t you?”

“Most certainly sure,” said Philo Gubb.

Philo Gubb entered his office and placed on his cutting-table the express package he had found leaning against his door. With his trimming-knife he cut the cord that bound the package. It contained, he knew, the new disguise for which he had sent twenty-five dollars to the Rising Sun Detective Agency’s Supply Bureau, and he was eager to examine his purchase, which, in the catalogue, was known as “No. 34. French Count, with beard and wig complete. List, $40.00. Special price to our graduates, $25.00, express paid.”

Mr. Gubb wore a face more solemn than usual, for he had just had bad news. He had hidden his distrust of Mr. Medderbrook, the father of his beloved Syrilla, and had carried that gentleman the one hundred dollars he had earned by aiding in the capture of the river pirates, but he had found Mr. Medderbrook close to tears.

“Read this, Gubb,” Mr. Medderbrook said; and that he was deeply affected was shown by the fact that he did not ask Mr. Gubb to pay any part of the cost of the telegram from Syrilla which had, this time, come “Collect.” The telegram read:—

Scared crazy. Resumed vegetables and all kinds of food, eating steadily all day and night, but have lost twenty-five pounds more. Now weigh only one hundredand twenty-five and going down rapidly. If worse goes to worst, love to Gubby.

It is not surprising that Mr. Gubb sighed as he lifted the exaggeratedly thin-waisted frock coat from the package, but there came a tap on the door and he hastily covered the coat with the wrapping paper and turned to the door.

“Enter in,” he said. And the door opened cautiously and a short, ruddy-faced man entered, peering into the room first and then closing the door behind him as cautiously as he had opened it.

“Are you this here detective feller?” he asked bluntly.

“I am Mister P. Gubb, deteckating and paper-hanging done, to command at your service,” admitted Mr. Gubb. “Won’t you take a seat onto a chair?”

“Depends,” said Mr. Gubb’s visitor, keeping his hand on the doorknob. “I’ll put it to you like this: Say some guy stole something from me, and I was willing to pay you for finding out who stole it and for getting it back—you’d take a job like that and say nothing about it to anybody, wouldn’t you?”

“Most certainly sure,” agreed Mr. Gubb.

“That’s the idee! You’d keep it dark. It wouldn’t be nobody’s business but yours and mine, would it? It would be a quiet little deal between you and me, and nobody would know anything about it. Hey?”

“Exactly sure,” said Philo Gubb. “The deteckativebusiness is conducted onto an absolutely quiet Q.T. basis.”

“Correct!” said his visitor. “I see you and me can do business. Now, my name is Gus P. Smith, and I’ve had one of the rawest deals handed me a man ever had handed him. I was coming along down one of these alleys between streets this morning and—”

He stopped short and turned to the door. Some one had tapped on the panels. Mr. Smith opened the door the merest crack and peered out. He closed it again instantly.

“Somebody to see you,” he whispered. “What I’ve got to say I want kept private. I’ll be back.”

He opened the door and slipped out, and as he went a second visitor entered. The newcomer was somewhat tall and thin, and his hair was long, so long it fell upon his shoulders in greasy curls. He wore a rather ancient frock coat and a black slouch hat, and a touch of style was added by his gray kid gloves, although the weather was average summer weather. His face was thin and adorned by a silky brown beard, divided at the chin and falling in two carefully arranged points. He closed the door carefully, first looking into the hall to see that Mr. Gus P. Smith had disappeared.

“Mr. P. Gubb, the detective?” he asked.

“Most absolutely sure,” said Mr. P. Gubb.

“My name,” said Mr. Gubb’s visitor, “is one you are doubtless familiar with. I am Alibaba Singh.”

“Pleased to meet your acquaintance,” said Mr. Gubb. “What can I aim to do for you?”

Mr. Alibaba Singh brought a chair close to Mr. Gubb’s desk and seated himself. He leaned close to Mr. Gubb—so close that Mr. Gubb scented the rank odor of cheap hair-oil—and whispered.

“Everything is to be strictly confidential—most strictly confidential. That’s understood?”

“Most absolutely sure.”

“Of course! Now, you must have heard of me—I’ve made quite a stir here in Riverbank since I came. Theosophical lectures—first lessons in Nirvana—Buddhistic philosophy—mysteries of Vedaism—et cetery.”

“I read your advertisement notices into the newspapers,” admitted Mr. Gubb.

“Just so. I have done well here. Many sought the mysteries. I have been unusually successful in Riverbank.” He stopped short and looked at Philo Gubb suspiciously. “You don’t believe in transmigration, do you?” he asked.

“Not without I do without knowing it,” said Mr. Gubb. “What is it?”

“Transmigration,” repeated Alibaba Singh. “It—Hindoos believe in it. At death the souls of the good enter higher forms of life; the souls of the bad enter lower forms of life. If you were a bad man and died you would become a—a dog, or a horse, or—or something. You don’t believe that, do you?”

“Most certainly not at all!” said Mr. Gubb.

“I—I teach it,” said Alibaba Singh uneasily. “It is part of my teaching.”

“You don’t aim to believe nothing of that sort, do you?” asked Mr. Gubb as if he could not imagine any man so foolish.

“Now, that’s it!” said Alibaba Singh. “That’s why I came to you. All this is strictly confidential, of course? Thanks. I can speak right out, Mr. Gubb? I have in the past taught some things I did not absolutely believe.”

“Quite likely true,” admitted Philo Gubb.

“We—we occulists get carried on by our eloquence,” said Alibaba Singh. “We—we go too far sometimes. Far too far! I admit it. I admit that frankly. When our clients reach out to us for more and more, we—we sometimes go too far. I won’t say we string them along. I wouldn’t say that. But we—we lead them farther than we have gone ourselves, perhaps. You understand?”

“Almost absolutely,” said Mr. Gubb.

“Just so! Mr. Gubb, one of my clients was greatly interested in transmigration of souls—greatly interested. She was interested in all things mystical—in reincarnation; in the return of the spirits of the dead; in everything like that. I—really, Mr. Gubb, it was hard for me to keep up with her.”

“And you proceeded to go ahead and teach her about this transmigration of souls that you don’t believe into yourself,” said Mr. Gubb helpfully.

“And when she found out you was a faker she set out to sue you for her money back.”

“No. Not that!” said Alibaba Singh energetically. “That’s not it. She doesn’t want her money back. She—she’salmostsatisfied. She’s willing to accept what had happened philosophically. She’s almost content. Mr. Gubb, the reason I came to you was that I did not want her to land in—”

Alibaba Singh looked carefully around.

“I don’t want her to land in jail,” he whispered. “It would make trouble for me. The lady, Mr. Gubb, is Mrs. Henry K. Lippett.”

“Well?” queried Mr. Gubb.

“What I don’t know,” said Alibaba Singh, wiping his brow nervously, “is whether Ididreincarnate her late husband or whether she’s liable to be arrested for stealing a—”

Alibaba Singh stopped short and arose hastily. Some one had knocked on Mr. Gubb’s door. Alibaba Singh moved toward the door.

“I don’t want to talk about this with anybody around,” he said nervously. “I’ll come back later. Not a word about it!”

He brushed past Mr. Gubb’s new visitor as he went out, and Mr. Gubb arose to greet the newcomer.

This third visitor was a large, red-faced man with an extremely loud vest. He wore a high hat of gray beaver, and a large but questionable diamond sparkled on his finger. He walked directly up to Mr. Gubb and shook hands.

“Sit down,” he commanded. “Now, you’re Gubb, the detective, ain’t you? Good enough! My name is Stephen Watts, but they mostly call me Steve for short—Three-Finger Steve,” he added, holding up his right hand to show that one finger was missing. “I’m in the show business. Ever hear of John, the Educated Horse? Ever hear of Hogo, the Human Trilobite? Ever hear of Henry, the Educated Pig? Well, them are me! That’s my show. Did you ever hear of a sheriff?”

“Frequently often,” said Mr. Gubb with a smile.

“Well, up to Derlingport this here Human Trilobite of mine got loose from my side-show tent, and when they found him he had eat about half of the marble cornerstone out from under the Dawkins Building. He’s crazy after white marble. It’s like candy to him. So Dawkins attaches my show and sends the Sheriff with an execution to grab the whole business unless I pay for a new cornerstone. Said it would cost two hundred and fifty dollars. I didn’t have the money.”

“So he took the show,” said Philo Gubb.

“Ex-act-ly!” said Mr. Three-Finger Steve. “He grabbed the whole caboodle.Ex-cept Henry, the Educated Pig. That’s why I’m here. That Sheriff’s attachment is out against that pig; it was a felony to remove that pig from Derling County while that attachment was out against it.Andthe pig was removed.”

“You removed it away from there?” asked Philo Gubb.

“Listen,” said Three-Finger Steve. “I didn’t remove that pig from Derling County. It was stole from me. Greasy Gus stole it. Augustus P. Smith, my bally-hoo man, stole Henry, the Educated Pig, and made a get-away with him. See? See what I want?”

“Not positively exact,” said Philo Gubb.

“Well, it’s a little bit delicate,” said Three-Finger Steve, “and that’s why I come to you instead of to the police. I want that pig. But if I go to the police and they find the pig they’ll send it back to the Sheriff in Derling County. See?”

“Do you want I should arrest Greasy Augustus P. Smith?” asked Philo Gubb.

“Not on your life!” said Three-Finger vigorously. “No arrests! You just get the pig.”

“How big is the size of the pig?” asked Philo Gubb.

“It’s a big pig,” said Mr. Watts. “Henry has been getting almost too fat, and that’s a fact. I’ve been thinking right along I’d have to diet Henry, but I never got to it. He’s one of these big, double-chinned pinkish-white pigs—looks like a prize pig in a county fair. And, listen! He’s in this town!”

“Really, indeed?” said Mr. Gubb.

“I know it!” said Three-Finger Steve. “I seen Greasy Gus load that pig into a farm wagon at Derlingport, and I thought Gus was trying to salvagethe pig for me, like one feller will help out another in time of trouble. So I come down to Riverbank on the train, expecting Gus would show up at the hotel and tell me where the pig was hid. All right! Gus shows up. ‘Gus,’ I says, ‘where’s Henry?’ Gus lets on to be worried. ‘Stolen!’ he says. ‘Some guy lifted him when I wasn’t looking.’ Of course I knew that was a lie, and I told him so. ‘Now,’ he says, ‘you’ll never get Henry back. I meant to give him back to you, but after you have talked to me like that I’ll never give him back. I’ll keep him,’ he says, ‘if I can find him.’ So there you are, Mr. Gubb. Henry is in Riverbank, and I want Henry. This story about Henry being stolen is a lie. Henry is hid, and Gus Smith knows where.”

Mr. Gubb looked at Mr. Watts thoughtfully.

“Now, if you’re one of these fellers with a conscience,” said Three-Finger, “you can send Henry back to the Sheriff. But I won’t have Greasy Gus putting a trick like this over on me! No, sir!”

He shook hands with Mr. Gubb again and went out. It was fully fifteen minutes before Mr. Gus P. Smith, who must have been waiting across the street, came in. He closed the door and locked it.

“I saw old Three-Finger come out of this building,” he said. “What did he want?”

“He came upon confidential business which can’t be mentioned,” said Mr. Gubb.

“Just so!” said Mr. Smith. “He wanted you to find Henry, the Educated Pig. Now, listen to me.I skipped out with that pig to do Three-Finger a favor and save part of his show for him, and that’s the truth, but he don’t believe it—not him! He called me a thief and worse, he did. He had the nerve to say I wanted that pig myself, to start in business with, and that’s a lie. No man can insult me like that, Mr. Gubb. Look at this—”

He took from his pocket a couple of feet of whipcord and handed it to Philo Gubb.

“What is this?” asked Mr. Gubb.

“That’s all that’s left of Henry,” said Greasy Gus. “That’s his total remains up to date. That’s the rope I led Henry with after I quit the wagon of a farmer that rode us out of Derlingport. That cord was tied to Henry’s left hind foot. Look at the end without the knot—was that cut or wasn’t it?”

“I most generally reserve my opinion until later than right at first,” said Philo Gubb.

“All right, reserve it!” said Greasy Gus. “Looks to me like it was cut. No matter. The main thing I want is for you to find Henry. How’s that?”

“Under them certain specifications,” said Philo Gubb, “I can take up the case and get right to work onto it.”

“All right, then,” said Greasy Gus. “Now, here’s what I know about it. I got out of Derlingport with Henry, and when the farmer dumped us from his wagon I hitched this whipcord to Henry’s leg and drove him along the road. After while I hit this town of Riverbank. I thought maybe the police wouldbe looking for Henry. So I took to an alley instead of a regular street, and along we came. We came down the alley, and of a sudden I began to wonder what I’d do with Henry now I’d got him into town. It would look kind of suspicious for me and Henry to go to a hotel. ‘I know what I’ll do,’ I says to myself: ‘What I want to do is to go alone and rent a barn and say I’m thinking of buying a pig if I can get a place to keep him.’ So that’s what I did.”

“You left the pig alone in the alley by itself?” asked Philo Gubb.

“Yes, sir!” said Mr. Smith. “I found an alley fence that had a staple in it, and I tied one end of the whipcord to the staple and went down the alley to find a barn I could put Henry in. About the fifth barn I tried I found a place for Henry and then I went back to get him, and he was gone!”

“And no clue?” asked Mr. Gubb.

“This tag end of the rope,” said Greasy Gus. “And that’s all I know about where Henry went, but my idee is somebody come along and seen him there and just thought he’d have a pig cheap.”

“It’s a pretty hard case to work onto,” said Mr. Gubb doubtfully. “Somebody might have come along with a wagon and loaded him in.”

“Sure!” said Mr. Smith. “No telling at all. That’s why I come to you. If he was where I could fall over him, I wouldn’t need a detective, would I? And if you find Henry I’ll just give you these fourfive-dollar bills. I’m no millionaire, but I’ll blow that much for the satisfaction of getting back at Three-Finger Watts. Is it a go?”

“Under them certain specifications,” said Mr. Gubb, using the exact words he had used before, “I can take up the case and get right to work onto it.”

Mr. Smith shook hands to bind the bargain and departed.

He had hardly disappeared before Mr. Alibaba Singh opened the door cautiously, put his head inside and then entered.

“I thought that man would stay forever,” he said with annoyance. “He isn’t in any way interested in my affairs or in the affairs of Mrs. Henry K. Lippett, is he?”

“Nobody has been here that is interested into anything you are interested into in the slightest form or manner,” Mr. Gubb assured him, and Alibaba Singh sighed with relief.

“You never knew Henry K. Lippett, did you?” he asked.

“Never at all,” said Mr. Gubb.

“He broke his neck,” said Alibaba Singh, “and it killed him.”

He hesitated and seemed lost in thought. He drew himself together sharply.

“It isn’tpossible!” he exclaimed with irritation and with no connection with what he had just said. “Idon’tbelieve it! I—I—”

His distress was great. He wrung one hand inside the other. He almost wept.

“Mr. Gubb,” he said, “since I was here I have been up to Mrs. Lippett’s house again, and it is worse than ever. It can’t be possible! I haven’t the power. I know I haven’t the power.”

“You’d ought to try to explain yourself more plain to your deteckative,” said Mr. Gubb.

“I’ll tell you everything!” said Alibaba Singh in a sudden burst of confidence. “Mr. Gubb, I am an impostor. I am a fraud. I am not a Hindoo. My name is Guffins, James Guffins. I did sleight-of-hand stuff in a Bowery show. I took up this mystic, yogi, Hindoo stuff because I thought it would pay and it was easy to fool the dames. They fell for it fast enough, and I made good money. But I’m no yogi. I’m no miracle man. I couldn’t bring a man back to life in his own form or any other form, could I?”

“Undoubtedly hardly so,” said Mr. Gubb.

“Glad to hear you say it,” said Mr. Guffins with relief. “A man gets so interested in his work—and there is a lot you can learn in books about this Hindoo mumbo-jumbo business—but of course I couldn’t bring Mr. Lippett back. I’m no spiritualistic medium. I couldn’t materialize the spirit of a pig.”

As he said the word, Mr. Guffins shuddered. It had come out unintentionally, but it seemed to jar him to the depth of his being. He had evidently not meant to saypig.

“Mr. Gubb, I will be frank with you. I need your help,” he continued. “Mrs. Lippett attended my lecture, and she became interested. She formed a class to study yogi philosophy. We went deep into it. I had to read up one week what I taught them the next. The lights turned low and my Hindoo costume helped, of course. Air of mystery, strange perfumes, and all that. You said you never knew Henry K. Lippett?”

“Never at all,” said Mr. Gubb.

“Fat man,” said Mr. Guffins. “He must have been a very fat man. And a hearty eater. Rather—rather an over-hearty eater. He must have lived to eat.”

Mr. Guffins sighed again.

“Of course there was remuneration,” Mr. Guffins went on. “For me, I mean. To pay for my time. Mrs. Lippett was most generous. Itoldher,” he said angrily, “I couldn’t guarantee to materialize her dead husband. I said to her: ‘Mrs. Lippett, we had better not try it. My power may be too weak. And think of the risk. Hemaybe pure spirit, floating in Nirvana, and come to us as a pure spirit, but what if his life was not all it should have been on earth? What if his spirit has passed into a lower form as a punishment for misdeeds? You will pardon me for speaking so of him, but men are weak,’ I said, ‘and he may now be a—a bird of the air. It would be a shock,’ I said, ‘to see him changed into a bird of the air.’”

Mr. Guffins paused and groaned.

“But she would have it,” he went on. “She would have me make the attempt. So—”

Mr. Guffins looked at Mr. Gubb appealingly.

“Youdon’tbelieve I could do it, do you?” he pleaded.

“Not in any manner of means,” said Mr. Gubb.

“That’s what I want you to prove to her,” said Mr. Guffins. “That’s why I came to you. Everybody knows you are a detective. I want you to—to get on my trail.”

“You want me to arrest you!” cried Mr. Gubb with surprise.

“I want you to be looking for me as if you wanted to arrest me,” said poor Mr. Guffins; “as if you had received word that I was a fraud, and that you had traced me to Mrs. Lippett’s. You can go there and say: ‘Gone! I am too late! He has escaped.’ And then you can tell her it couldn’t be.”

“That what couldn’t be?” asked Mr. Gubb.

“The room was darkish,” said Mr. Guffins. “The lights were dim. I stood in the light of the red globe, and it gave me a weird look. I held the crystal globe in one hand and the jade talisman in the other. The incense arose from the incense-burner. As if out of the empty air, a sweet-toned bell rang three times. I bowed low three times as the bell rang and muttered the magic words. I made them up as I said them, but they sounded mystic. Mrs. Lippett was sitting on the edge of her chair, breathless withemotion. The curtains were drawn across the door at the back of the room. You could have heard a pin drop. We were alone, just we two. I felt creepy myself. I turned toward the curtains. I said, ‘Henry, appear!’”

“Yes?” queried Philo Gubb.

Mr. Guffins threw out both hands with a gesture of utter despair.

“A pig came under the curtains,” he groaned. “A pig—a great, fat, double-chinned, pinky-white pig, the kind you see at county fairs—came under the curtains and grunted twice. It stood there and raised its head and grunted twice.”

Mr. Guffins wrung his hands nervously.

“It—it surprised me,” he said,—“but only for a minute. I said, ‘Get out, you beast!’ and was going to kick it, but Mrs. Lippett rose slowly from her chair. She half-tottered for an instant, and then she covered her face with her hands. She began to weep. ‘I knew it!’ she sobbed; ‘I knew it! Oh, Henry, I knew you ate too much. I told you andtoldyou again and again you were making a pig of yourself. Oh, Henry, if you had only been less of a pig when you were alive before!’ And what do you think that pig did?”

“What did it do?” asked Philo Gubb.

“It sat up on its hind legs and begged,” said Mr. Guffins, “begged for food. It was awful! Mrs. Lippett couldn’t stand it. She wept. ‘He was always so hungry in his other life,’ she said. ‘Ican’t begin to be stern with him now. To-morrow, but not when he has just come back to me. Come, Henry!’

“She went into the dining-room,” continued Mr. Guffins, “and Henry—or the pig, for itcouldn’thave been Henry—followed her. And what do you think it did?”

“What?” asked Mr. Gubb.

“It went right to the dining-room table and climbed into a chair. Pigs don’t do that, do they? But you don’t believe it could have been Henry, do you? It got up in the chair andsatin it, and put its front feet on the table and grunted. And Mrs. Lippett hurried about saying, ‘Oh, Henry! Oh, poor, dear Henry!’ and brought a plate of fried hominy and sliced apple and set it before him. And he wouldn’t touch it! He wouldn’t eat. So Mrs. Lippett wept harder and got a napkin and tied it around the pig’s neck. Then the pig ate. He almost climbed into the plate, and gobbled the food down. And then he grunted for more. And Mrs. Lippett wept and said: ‘It’s Henry! He always did tie a napkin around his neck—he spilled his soup so. It’s Henry! It acts just like Henry. He never did anything at the table but eat and grunt.’ And so,” said Mr. Guffins sadly, “she thinks it’s Henry. She’s fixed up the guest bedroom for him.”

“The idea of such a notion!” said Mr. Gubb.

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