devil have I been into? Where
the devil have I been?"

"I found you here this morning. Your wife has been here."

"Oh, lord! Oh, lord! What did she say when she saw me dead to the
world--and bald-headed?"

"She did not see you. I had concealed you."

"Good boy, good boy."

"She offered me two hundred dollars reward to bring you home," and Mr.
Middleton related all that Mrs. Brockelsby had said.

"It would be all off when she saw me bald-headed. What the devil
wouldn't she suspect? I don't know. I would say I didn't know where I
had been. That would certainly sound fishy. It would sound like a
preposterous excuse to cover up something pretty questionable. People
don't go out in good society and get their heads shaved. She's pretty
independent and uppish now. She said the next time she knew of me
cutting up any didoes, she would get a divorce. She comes into two
hundred thousand from her grandfather's estate in six months and she's
pretty independent. Say, my boy, can't you take a check for the money
she wants? She's going to Washington to-morrow. Tell her I went out of
town and sent the money. I _will_ go out of town. But the boys will
see my bald head. Where do you suppose I was? What sort of crowd was I
with? I must have a wig. You must get it for me. The boys would josh
me to death, and if the story got to my wife it would be all off. I'll
go to Battle Creek and get a new lot of hair started."

Mr. Middleton sat down and wrote busily for a moment. He handed a
sheet of paper to Mr. Brockelsby.

"What's this? You resign? You're not going to help me out?"

"I am no longer in your employ. I will undertake to do all you ask of
me for a proper compensation, say one hundred and fifty a day for two
days."

"What?" screamed Mr. Brockelsby. "This is robbery, extortion,
blackmail."

"It is what you often charge yourself. Very well. Get your own wig and
be seen on the streets going after it. Leave your wife to wonder why I
do not come to report what progress is made in the search for you and
to start a rigorous investigation herself. I am under no obligations
not to ease her worry, to calm her disturbed mind by telling her I
have found you. She'll be hot foot after you then."

"She'd spot the wig at once. It would fool others, but not her. She'd
see I had been jagged. You've got me foul. I'll have to accede to your
terms. You'll not give me away?"

"Sir, I would not, in this, my first employment as an independent