legraphic sending at
once; there actually was a fellow who had a habit of interjecting the
superfluous S in his despatches. Name of Ewall, and he was the operator
in a sub-station near Jefferson Market.

"Well, I posted up there and sounded him. He didn't know anything about
it at first, so I had to scare him a bit; he weakened then, and told me
what I wanted to know.

"Of course it wasn't a real message; he had run it off on his machine
at the request of a queer-looking gentleman who had given him a couple
of dollars for his trouble. According to his description, the man was
stout and dark, with one ear--the left--decidedly larger than the
other."

"Aha! the fellow we saw at the bazaar. But he wasn't in the group about
the grocery stove."

"Of course not, but he had his capper there."

"Go on."

"Well, I thanked Mr. Ewall for his information, and left him with a
solemn admonition to be more careful in the future about doing business
on the side. Then I sat down to consider.

"Now, I was sure that the grocery and its proprietor, the two pounds of
the best butter, and the purple trading-stamp had nothing to do with
the real business of the evening. The game was simply to identify the
'Mr. House-smith' who had advertised for his ninety-and-nine kisses,
and the clap-trap of the message in telegraphic characters, and all the
rest of it, were simply the kind of bait at which so eccentric a person
might be expected to bite. The gentleman with one ear larger than the
other desired to find the elusive Mademoiselle D., erstwhile dispenser
of kisses at an East Side charity bazaar, and, consequently, he was
following up every possible clew. He wanted 'Mr. House-smith,' and I
wanted him.

"Fight shadows with shadows, remember; and so I took service with my
honest friend, David Brown, dealer in groceries at West Fourth and
Eleventh streets. He was rather offish at first, but Mattson, at Police
Head-quarters, had provided me with a special detective badge, and Mr
Brown was led to believe that I was working up a case of graft. He lent
me a jumper, and I was forthwith installed behind the counter.

"Everything went off according to schedule. The 'shadow' had his cab in
readiness and I had mine. He trailed you to No. 4020 Madison Avenue,
and I followed Mr. Shadow to the Central Detective Office. It seems to
have been a case of sleuth against sleuth, with the match all square."

"Anything else?"

"Well, yes. As I came into