the house, sir," he said, "because I thought you'd
just as lief have a talk outside."

"What is your business?" asked Croft.

The man moved a few steps farther from the house, and Lawrence followed
him.

"Is it anything secret you have to tell me?" he asked.

"Well, yes, sir, I should think it was," replied the other, a tall man,
with sandy hair and beard, and dressed in a checkered business suit,
which had lost a good deal of the freshness of its early youth. "I may
as well tell you at once who I am. I am an anti-detective. Never heard
of that sort of person, I suppose?"

"Never," said Lawrence, curtly.

"Well, sir, the organization which I belong to is one which is filling a
long felt want. You know very well, sir, that this country is full of
detective officers, not only those who belong to a regular police force,
but lots of private ones, who, if anybody will pay them for it, will go
to Jericho to hunt a man up. Now, sir, our object is to protect society
against these people. When we get information that a man is going to be
hounded down by any of these detectives--and we have private ways of
knowing these things--we just go to that man, and if he is willing to
become one of our clients, we take him into our charge; and our
business, after that, is to keep him informed of just what is being done
against him. He can stay at home in comfort with his wife, settle up his
accounts, and do what he likes, and the day before he is to be swooped
down on, he gets notice from us, and comfortably goes to Chicago, or
Jacksonville, where he can take his ease until we post him of the next
move of the enemy. If he wants to take extra precautions, and writes a
letter to anybody in the place where he lives, dated from London or Hong
Kong, and sends that letter under cover to us, we'll see that it is
mailed from the place it is dated from, and that it gets into the hands
of the detectives. There have been cases where a gentleman has had six
months or a year of perfect comfort, by the detectives being thrown off
by a letter like this. That is only one of the ways in which we help
and protect persons in difficulties who, if it wasn't for us, would be
dragged off, hand-cuffed, from the bosom of their families; and who,
even if they never got convicted, would have to pay a lot of money to
get out of the scrape. Now, I have put myself a good deal out of the
way, sir, to come to you, and offer you our assistance."

"Me!" exclaimed