r the management of the
company's business in Philadelphia, Washington, and New York, to say
nothing of other places. Butler was familiar with the Philadelphia sign,
but did not care to go to the office there. He decided, once his mind
was made up on this score, that he would go over to New York, where he
was told the principal offices were.

He made the simple excuse one day of business, which was common enough
in his case, and journeyed to New York--nearly five hours away as
the trains ran then--arriving at two o'clock. At the offices on lower
Broadway, he asked to see the manager, whom he found to be a large,
gross-featured, heavy-bodied man of fifty, gray-eyed, gray-haired,
puffily outlined as to countenance, but keen and shrewd, and with short,
fat-fingered hands, which drummed idly on his desk as he talked. He
was dressed in a suit of dark-brown wool cloth, which struck Butler as
peculiarly showy, and wore a large horseshoe diamond pin. The old man
himself invariably wore conservative gray.

"How do you do?" said Butler, when a boy ushered him into the presence
of this worthy, whose name was Martinson--Gilbert Martinson, of American
and Irish extraction. The latter nodded and looked at Butler shrewdly,
recognizing him at once as a man of force and probably of position. He
therefore rose and offered him a chair.

"Sit down," he said, studying the old Irishman from under thick, bushy
eyebrows. "What can I do for you?"

"You're the manager, are you?" asked Butler, solemnly, eyeing the man
with a shrewd, inquiring eye.

"Yes, sir," replied Martinson, simply. "That's my position here."

"This Mr. Pinkerton that runs this agency--he wouldn't be about this
place, now, would he?" asked Butler, carefully. "I'd like to talk to him
personally, if I might, meaning no offense to you."

"Mr. Pinkerton is in Chicago at present," replied Mr. Martinson. "I
don't expect him back for a week or ten days. You can talk to me,
though, with the same confidence that you could to him. I'm the
responsible head here. However, you're the best judge of that."

Butler debated with himself in silence for a few moments, estimating the
man before him. "Are you a family man yourself?" he asked, oddly.

"Yes, sir, I'm married," replied Martinson, solemnly. "I have a wife and
two children."

Martinson, from long experience conceived that this must be a matter
of family misconduct--a son, daughter, wife. Such cases were not
infrequent.