uisitors
of parting in the office with Clayton after Somers had given over
the deposits. Before the two separated, Einstein had forgotten his
Hebrew timidity.

"Let me know if you pick up any items," said McNerney, giving the
lad a ten-dollar bill, with a secret sorrow at throwing good money
away. "My chum, Jim Condon, and I hope to help get this reward into
our Precinct Squad. Come down to-morrow night to the station, and
I'll introduce you. He'll look out for you, and he can write me
and keep on the trail. I take the next Cunard steamer for Queenstown."

Mr. Ben Timmins, as host, drew McNerney into the little back room,
and the three smacked their lips over the "medicinal brandy," which
had been Fritz Braun's pride.

"Where's the boss?" casually demanded the officer. "He went over
to Germany a couple of months ago," volubly explained Timmins. "I'm
cock o' the walk for a few months now. Drop in and see me, on the
d. q."

Two hours later, from a dark angle opposite, Officer McNerney saw
Emil Einstein, with swinging steps, cigar in mouth, speed along
eastwardly.

In plain clothes, his brow covered with a soft hat, the athletic
policeman dashed along, keeping his prey in view. The lightning
change of uniform gave him a clear protection, and in the thirty
minutes of his necessary absence, the mustache which was McNerney's
pride had disappeared.

"Either he goes to his girl, or else to meet the woman of the
carriage," mused the man, who had sworn to reach a portion of the
now heavily increased award. "Once I locate his 'stamping ground,'
I am on the road to success."

It was twenty minutes before the excited McNerney saw Einstein
slacken his determined pace down the Bowery. McNerney's heart beat,
in wild hopes, as the lad, with furtive glances around, began to
linger around the corner of the Dry Dock Bank.

"Is it the ten dollars burning in his pocket?" murmured the excited
man. "Some cheap woman foolery?"

His practiced eye soon told him of the lad's determined purpose.
For, in all the hovering movements, the office boy never left one
or the other front of the bank building.

And none of the loungers, no street waif, no bedaubed siren
lingered in colloquy there in the shadows of the respected fiduciary
institution. "It's a poor fishing ground for the fancy," growled
McNerney, as he suddenly darted forward in pursuit.

A woman, whose gliding walk and shapely voluptuousness of body
indicated the Polish J