ver him and he came
very near to fainting. He was in a condition of utter helplessness, and
had anyone come into the room at that minute and called him by name he
would simply have dropped to the floor in a heap.

"If the police were to come in now!" The thought crashed through his
brain like thunder, and at the same moment, almost before he had time to
appreciate a quarter of its significance, there came a loud knocking at
the front door below. The bell rang with a dreadful clamour; men's
voices were heard talking excitedly, and presently heavy steps began to
come up the stairs in the direction of his room.

It _was_ the police!

And all Blake could do was to laugh foolishly to himself--and wait till
they were upon him. He could not move nor speak. He stood face to face
with the evidence of his horrid crime, his hands and face smeared with
the blood of his victim, and there he was standing when the police burst
open the door and came noisily into the room.

"Here it is!" cried a voice he knew. "Third floor back! And the fellow
caught red-handed!"

It was the man with the bag leading in the two policemen.

Hardly knowing what he was doing in the fearful stress of conflicting
emotions, he made a step forward. But before he had time to make a
second one, he felt the heavy hand of the law descend upon both
shoulders at once as the two policemen moved up to seize him. At the
same moment a voice of thunder cried in his ear--

"Wake up, man! Wake up! Here's the supper, and good news too!"

Blake turned with a start in his chair and saw the Dane, very red in the
face, standing beside him, a hand on each shoulder, and a little further
back he saw the Frenchman leering happily at him over the end of the
bed, a bottle of beer in one hand and a paper package in the other.

He rubbed his eyes, glancing from one to the other, and then got up
sleepily to fix the wire arrangement on the gas jet to boil water for
cooking the eggs which the Frenchman was in momentary danger of letting
drop upon the floor.

THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PRIVATE SECRETARY IN NEW YORK

I

It was never quite clear to me how Jim Shorthouse managed to get his
private secretaryship; but, once he got it, he kept it, and for some
years he led a steady life and put money in the savings bank.

One morning his employer sent for him into the study, and it was evident
to the secretary's trained senses that there was something unusual in
the ai