g the house, but they are away
for the summer, sur."

"Oh. I see. Thank you."

"Did you wish to see Mr. Thomas, sur?"

"Is he busy?"

"He said he was going away, sur. He's at work packing up some things, I
believe."

"Then I won't bother him. It isn't likely that he would want to buy a new
History of the United States, is it?"

"Indeed not!" cried the girl, in deep disgust.

She at once took Ralph for a book agent, a set of men she thoroughly
despised.

"I won't bother him," said Ralph, and walked away, while the girl hurried
back into the basement.

"So he is going away," thought Ralph. "I must see to it that he does not
get very far."

He took up his position behind the stone steps of a house nearby, so that
looking from the windows of his own residence, Martin might not see him.

While he was waiting, Ralph looked up and down the street for the
bootblack, but Mickety had disappeared.

"He won't leave me in the lurch, I feel certain of that," said Ralph to
himself. "Yet I would feel easier if there was a policeman in sight."

Five minutes more went by, and then the front door of the house opened and
Martin came out.

He was elegantly dressed and wore a silk hat. In one hand he carried a
large leather valise.

He looked up and down anxiously, and then ran down the steps to the
pavement.

He started to walk down the block, and Ralph allowed him to get a hundred
feet or more from the house.

Then he stepped out and confronted the man.

"Well, Mr. Martin Thomas, we meet again," he said, coolly.

Martin Thomas, for that was really the man's name, was thunderstruck.

"What--er----" he stammered.

"I say we meet again," repeated Ralph. "I guess you did not expect to see
me quite so soon."

"Confound the luck!" muttered the man, biting his lips nervously.

"You did not expect me to obtain my freedom as quickly as I did."

"How did you get out?" muttered the man, savagely.

"A friend came to my assistance."

"A friend!" repeated Martin Thomas, with a start.

"Yes, a friend."

"Who?"

"Perhaps you can guess," went on Ralph, who wished to prolong the
conversation as much as possible.

"I cannot."

"Make a guess."

"Somebody from Glen Arbor?"

"No."

"A city friend, perhaps?"

"Exactly."

"Well, what are you going to do now?"

"Rather, let me ask you what you are going to do?" returned Ralph, warmly.

He was much relieved just then to see Mickety across the way, with a
police