coffin and a clean shirt and a tombstone. He's wounded
me but I ain't dead yet. Good-bye."

Doctor Sanford received Jimmy's crazy message in astonishment. He, too,
rang the telephone again and again but could hear nothing more, so he
walked down to Miss Minerva's house and rang the door-bell. Jimmy opened
the door and led the way to the back-porch, where the injured man, who
had just recovered consciousness, was sitting limply in a chair.

"What does all this mean? Are you hurt?" asked the Doctor as he examined
Mr. Jones's victim.

"No, I think I'm all right now," was the reply; "but that scoundrel
certainly gave me a severe blow."

Billy, shut up in the bath-room and listening to all the noise and
confusion, had been scared nearly out of his senses. He had kept as
still as a mouse till now, when, thinking he heard friendly voices he
yelled out, "Open the do' an' untie me."

"We done forgot Billy," said the little rescuer, as he ran to the
bath-room door and opened it. He was followed by the Doctor, who cut the
cords that bound the prisoner.

"Now, William," commanded Doctor Sanford as they grouped themselves
around the stout, plump gentleman in the chair, "begin at the beginning,
and let us get at the bottom of this affair."

"Mr. Algernon Jones he come to the gate," explained the little boy, "an'
he say he goin' to fix the water pipe an' he say he's a plumber. He's a
very 'greeable man, but I don't want Aunt Minerva to marry him, now. I
was plumb tickled at him an' I tuck him to the bath-room an' fust thing
I knowed he grabbed holter me an' shuck me like what you see a cat do a
mouse, an' he say--"

"And he'd more 'n a million whiskers," interrupted Jimmy, who thought
Billy was receiving too much attention, "and he--"

"One at a time," said the Doctor. "Proceed, William."

"An' he say he'll bust my brains outer my head if I holler, an' I ain't
a-goin' to holler neither, an' he tie me to a chair an' tie my mouth up
an' lock the do'--"

"And I comed over," said Jimmy eagerly, "and I run home and I see Mr.
Algernon Jones is a robber and I 'phoned to Miss Minerva's beau, and
if he'd brunged what I telled him, he wouldn't never got cracked in the
face like Mr. Algernon Jones done crack him, and Billy got to all time
let robbers in the house so they can knock mans and little boys down."

"While you stand talking here the scoundrel will get away," said the
injured man.

"That is so," agreed Doctor Sanford, "