ouble with
somebody.

He finished his cigar, listened to the striking chimes, and lighted
another smoke. A pedestrian stopped beside him.

"Old Sid Prale, or I'm a liar!" he cried.

Prale looked up, and then sprang to his feet.

"Jim Farland, the sleuth!" he cried in answer. "Old Jim, the holy terror
to evildoers. Now I am glad that I'm home!"

"When did you get in?"

"Yesterday. Sit down. Have a cigar. You're the first old friend I've
met!"

Detective Jim Farland sat down and lighted the cigar. "You've been gone
some time," he said.

"Ten years, Jim."

"Went away rather sudden, didn't you?"

"I did. I made my decision one night and sailed the night following,"
said Prale.

"I always wondered why you went, and what became of you. Had a good job
with old Griffin, didn't you?"

"The job was all right, Jim. But there was a girl----"

"Ah, ha!"

"And she threw me over for a fellow who had some money. That made me
huffy, of course. I swore I'd shake the dust of New York from my shoes,
go to some foreign country, take with me the ten thousand dollars I had
saved, and turn it into a million."

"And came back broke!" Farland said.

"Nothing of the sort, Jim. I came back with a million."

"Great Scott! I suppose I'd better be on my way then. I ain't in the
habit of having millionaires let me associate with 'em."

"You sit where you are, or I'll use violence!" Prale told him. "I
suppose you are still on the force? Still fussing around down in the
financial district watching for swindlers?"

"I left the force three years ago," Jim Farland replied. "Couldn't seem
to get ahead. Too honest, maybe--or too ignorant. I'm in a sort of
private detective business now--got an office up the street. Doing
fairly well, too--lots of old friends give me work. If you have anything
in my line----"

"If I have, you'll get a job," said Prale.

"Let me slip you a card," said Farland. "You never know when you may
need a detective. So you came back with a million, eh?"

"And ran into a mess," Prale added.

"I can't imagine a man with a million running into much of a mess,"
Farland said.

"That's all you know about it. I may need your services sooner than you
think. There is a sort of jinx working on me, it appears."

"Spill it!" Jim Farland said.

Sidney Prale did. He related what had happened at the bank, at the
hotel, in Griffin's office, and told of the scene with Rufus Shepley.

"Funny!" Farland said, when he h