hand, and sooner or later, they will find that you are carrying
three shells and a pea. Get out, Kittymunks. I'm afraid of you--too
tough for me."

Flummers waved Whittlesy into oblivion, and continued: "Old
Witherspoon gave up his check for twenty thousand, and there the
reward stops, for Mrs. Brooks won't give anything for having her
husband caught. It has been whispered in the _Star_ office that Henry
Witherspoon had something to do with the detection of Brooks, and made
Stavers promise that he would give half the reward to charity. But I
don't believe it. Why should he want to give up ten thousand? But
there's a mystery in it somewhere, and the first thing you know
papa'll get on the track of it. Here, boy, bring that drink. What have
you been doing out there? Have I got to drink alone? Well, I'm equal
to any emergency." He shuddered as he swallowed the whisky, but
recovered instantly, and with a circular movement, expressive of his
satisfaction, rubbed his growing paunch.

Witherspoon remained three days at home and then resumed his place at
the store. With a promptness in which he took a pride, he sent a check
to the detective. He did this even before he went down to the
Colossus. The physician had urged him to put aside all business cares,
and the merchant had replied with a contemptuous grunt. He appeared to
be stronger when he came home at evening, and he joked with Ellen; he
told her that she had narrowly escaped the position of temporary
manager of the Colossus. They were in the library, and a cheerfulness
that had been absent seemed just to have returned. Witherspoon went
early to bed and left Henry and Ellen sitting there.

"Don't you think he will be well in a few days?" the girl asked.

"Yes, now that his worry is locked in jail."

"That isn't so very bad," she replied, smiling at him. "But suppose
they hang his worry?"

"It may be all the better."

"Mother and I went this afternoon to see Mrs. Brooks," said the girl.
"And she doesn't appear to be crushed, either. I don't see why she
should be--they wouldn't have lived together much longer anyway. Oh,
of course she's humiliated and all that, but if she really cared for
him she'd be heartbroken. She used to tell me how handsome he was, but
that was before they were married. I think she must have found out
lately what she might have known at first--that he married her for
money. Oh, she's a good woman--there's no doubt of that--but she's
surely as