ice.

I have it before me now, cut out rather raggedly, for I confess I was
far from calm when I did it.

* * * * *

"A SHAMEFUL INCIDENT.

"Perhaps nothing has so exposed this city to criticism as the conduct of
Officer Flinn, as shown in a news item in our columns exclusively.
Officer Flinn has been five years on the police force of this city. He
has until now borne an excellent record. But he did not register
yesterday, and on limping into the Central Station this morning told a
story manifestly intended to indicate temporary insanity and thus still
further disqualify him for the service of his country. His statement of
seeing three elderly women kidnap a young girl from in front of the
Court House, his further statement of following the kidnappers far into
the country, with a young man he cannot now produce, is sufficiently
outrageous.

"But, not satisfied with this, the inventive ex-officer went further and
added a night in a pigpen, constantly threatened by a savage bull, and a
journey of forty-five miles on foot when, early this morning, the animal
retired for a belated sleep!

"Representatives of this paper, investigating this curious situation,
found the farmhouse which Officer Flinn described as being the den of
the kidnappers and which he stated he had left in a state of siege, the
bandits and their victim within and the young man who had accompanied
the officer, without. Needless to say, nothing bore out his story. A
young married couple, named Culver, who are spending their honeymoon
there, knew nothing of the circumstances, although stating that they
believed that a neighboring family possessed a belligerent bull.

"It is a regrettable fact that the only scandal which marred a fine and
patriotic outburst of national feeling yesterday should have involved
the city organization. Is it not time that loyal citizens demand an
investigation into----"

* * * * *

"Never mind the rest, Lizzie," Tish said wearily. "I suppose I'll have
to get him something to do, but I don't know what, unless I employ him
to follow me around and arrest me when I act like a dratted fool."

She sighed, and rocked slowly.

"Another thing, Lizzie," she said. "I don't know but what Aggie was
right about Charlie Sands. I've been thinking it over, and I guess it
was evening, for I remember seeing a new moon just before he came, and
wishing he would be a girl. But I