any elopement," says I. "I was just calling our
butler down for flirting some with one of their hired girls over there."

"May we talk to your butler?" ast one of them.

"No; you can't," says I, "because he's gone in to see about breakfast."

One of the young fellows looked up and sort of scratched his head with a
lead pencil.

"I say," says he, "are we on a high love story or one of the servants'
quarters? Tell us, friend"--he says to me--"can't you help us out on
this?"

"It ain't in my line of business," says I; "but it seems plain, if their
hired man has run away with our maid, or our butler run away with
theirs, it ain't story enough to bother a alderman or his foreman about
before breakfast."

"Well, lemme get a picture of the wall, anyways," says he; and he done
that before I could help it.

"Have you got one of your butler?" he ast.

"No, we ain't; and you can't get none. We don't bother about the lower
classes," says I.

So they laughed and bimeby went on away. I give them some
cigarettes--all I had; and they said I was a good scout, like enough.

Well, of all the papers that tried to get a story that morning, not one
printed a word except one. It come out with about a colyum in the paper
all about a mysterious disappearance in Millionaire Row. It allowed that
nobody could tell who had disappeared, but some said that Old Man Wisner
had run off with one of Alderman Wright's hired girls, and others said
that Old Man Wright had eloped with Mrs. Wisner, while others declared
that the Wrights' butler had eloped with the second-floor maid of the
Wisner household; though still others insisted the Wisner gardener had
disappeared with the heiress of Alderman Wright, the well-known citizen
whose re-election at the coming term was practically assured.

That paper printed some pictures too--one of Old Man Wisner and one of
Bonnie Bell, allowing that he was our butler and the one of Bonnie Bell
was the picture of the second-floor maid of the Wisner household. I
reckon they had them pictures already in their newspaper office. But
they printed a new picture of the Wisner wall and said some more funny
things about that, like they had before.

This wasn't no funny time for us. The next day there was a big fire or
something, and all those people got to writing about something else; and
they let us alone.

After they'd gone away that morning Old Man Wright ast me if I'd learned
anything. Then I told him about how