him on finding a pocket hole in a
dress.

The dress was hung in a closet, and Mr. Yenowine proceeded on the
arctic exploring expedition, while Mr. Northrop and the detective were
examining a corset that the young woman had thrown on the floor, looking
for bogus quarters. The _News_ man, with all his knowledge of dress
pockets, came out unsuccessful, and said he must have lost the
combination, and accused the janitor of giving it away. Mr. Smith
suggested that they cut the pocket off, but the district attorney, Mr.
McKenney, said it would be clearly against the law. He said that would
be burglary. In the meantime the young woman had kept on shucking
herself, until Mr. Neiman, of the _Sentinel_, became faint and went out
on the steps to get a breath of fresh air, from which position he looked
through the window.

While the gentlemen were wondering if there were no rules of etiquette
published that would make it easy and polite to search a woman for
bogus two shilling pieces, the woman threw an article of female wearing
apparel out on the floor for them to examine that fairly frightened
them.

"Merciful heavens," said Mr. Yenowine, who was at that time a young and
innocent person, unused to the ways of the world, "she has exploded."

Northrop poked it with his cane and said, "No, those always come off,"
and he put on an air of superiority over the boys which was annoying.

"What, always?" said Mr. Neiman, who had his fingers up before his face,
and was blushing as though he had intermittent fever.

"Well, most always," said Mr. Northrop, who had taken it up, and was
examining it with a critic's eye.

"I presume those are a bustle, are they not?" said innocent Yenowine.

"Go aff, till the divil wid yer bushtle," said Mr. Smith, "I know
bether. Gintlemen, I am a plain shpoken man, and for me age have seen
many thrying situations, but if this was me lasht day on earth I should
shwear that was no more a bushtle than I am. Bushtles are never twins."

Mr. Harger, of the _Wisconsin_, who had hidden behind the stove pipe,
was asked by Mr. Smith what he thought they were, whether it might
not be an infernal machine. Mr. Harger said he had never known one
to explode. He said when he was reporting legislative proceedings the
members drew those with their stationery, from the superintendent of
public property, but he had no idea what they did with them.

At this point Mr. Aldrich, who had just come in, was asked to examine