r day,
I've just been asked by a lodge I belong to if I could help out a young
feller just out of an orphan asylum. He's a big, strong, healthy boy,
and he's willing to come to work for half what I'm paying Schenkmann. So
naturally I've got to get rid of Schenkmann."

"I wonder you got time to bother yourself breaking in a new beginner,"
Abe commented.

Linkheimer waggled his head solemnly.

"I can't help it, Abe," he said. "I let my business suffer, but
nevertheless I'm constantly giving the helping hand to these poor
inexperienced fellows. I assure you it costs me thousands of dollars in
a year, but that's my nature, Abe. I'm all heart. When would you want
Schenkmann to come to work?"

"Right away, Mr. Linkheimer."

"Very good, I'll go and call him."

He rose to his feet and started for the door.

"Oh, by the way, Abe," he said, as he paused at the threshold, "you
know Schenkmann is a married man with a wife and child, and I understand
Mrs. Schenkmann is inclined to be extravagant. For that reason I let
him live in a house I own on Park Avenue, and I take out the rent each
week from his pay. It's really a charity to do so. The amount
is--er--sixteen dollars a month. I suppose you have no objection to
sending me four dollars a week out of his wages?"

"Well, I ain't exactly a collecting agency, y'understand," Abe said;
"but I'll see what my partner says, and if he's agreeable, I am. Only
one thing though, Mr. Linkheimer, my partner bothers the life out of me
I should get from you a recommendation."

"I'll give you one with pleasure, Abe," Linkheimer replied; "but it
isn't necessary."

He returned to the front of the office and went to the safe.

"Why just look here, Abe," he said. "I have here in the safe five
hundred dollars and some small bills which I put in there last night
after I come back from Newark. It was money I received the day before
yesterday as chairman of the entertainment committee of a lodge I belong
to. The safe was unlocked from five to seven last night and Schenkmann
was in and out here all that time."

He opened the middle compartment and pulled out a roll of bills.

"You see, Abe," he said, counting out the money, "here it is: one
hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred and----"

Here Mr. Linkheimer paused and examined the last bill carefully, for
instead of a hundred-dollar bill it was only a ten-dollar bill.

"Well, what d'ye think of that dirty thief?" he cried at