y the penitentiary is nicer
than the jail. Better doors. Nobody can break in and steal things from
you."

"Snooks Turner!" said his aunt. "You know as well as I do that Mr.
Mullen will forgive and forget, if you will. Would you rather see me
go to prison--suffer?"

"No, of course not, auntie," said Snooks, laughing. "But you see, I've
hired Detective Gubb to work on this case, and if there's no case, it
will not be fair to him. He's all worked up about it. He's so eager to
be at it that he has almost come down from the top of that ladder. In
another day or two he would come all the way down, and then there's
no telling what would happen. No, I'm a newspaper man. I want Philo
Gubb to discover something we don't know anything about."

"I might start in trailing and shadowing somebody that hasn't anything
to do with this case," suggested Philo Gubb. "That wouldn't discommode
none of you folks, and I'd sort of feel as if I was giving you your
money's worth. Somebody has been writin' on the front of the Methodist
Church with black chalk. I might try to detect who done that."

"But that would be a very difficult job," said Snooks.

"It would be some hard," admitted Philo Gubb.

"Then you ought to have more money," said Snooks. "Aunt Martha ought
to contribute to the fund. If Aunt Martha contributes to the fund,
I'll be good. I'll come out of jail."

Aunt Martha opened her shopping bag, and fumbled in it with her old
fingers. Philo Gubb took from his pocket the bills he had been given
during the morning. He counted them. He had exactly one hundred
dollars, just enough to send to Mr. Medderbrook.

"How much should I give you, Mr. Gubb?" asked Aunt Martha tremulously,
and Philo Gubb stared thoughtfully at the ceiling for a few minutes.
When he spoke, his words were cryptic to all those in the room.

"Well, ma'am," he said, "I guess ten cents will be about enough. I've
got a two-cent postage stamp myself."

"Ain't detectives wonderful?" whispered Nan, clinging to Snooks's arm.
"You can't ever tell what they really mean."

Nobody seemed to care what Philo Gubb meant, but a week later Snooks
stopped him on the street and asked him why he had asked for ten
cents.

"For to register a letter," said Philo Gubb. "A letter I had to send
off."

THE CHICKEN

Philo Gubb, with three rolls of wall-paper under his arm and a pail of
mixed paste in one hand, walked along Cherry Street near the
brick-yard.

On this oc