nd it. When the
Biggleswades, having finished their breakfast, went down to the beach,
he lighted a cigar, took his folding-chair and his pile of newspapers,
and settled down sixty yards away from them. As he had expected, their
first act was to discuss the newspaper with great animation, handing it
backwards and forwards to one another. And he took _The Daily
Telegraph_ from his pile, and set about seeking the source of their
excitement. He passed over the first advertisement in the agony
column, the offer of a reward for the recovery of the stolen child of
Kernaby, the Marmalade Millionaire, merely noting that it had been
raised to 4000 pounds, and came to the conclusion that the second
advertisement was genuine, while the third, which set forth at great
length the woes of a young woman parted from a young man, seemed to him
to read like thieves communicating. He had begun to eliminate the
superfluous words, when Tinker, with Blazer, his bull-terrier, came
suddenly up to him from behind, and bade him good-morning.

Tinker had breakfasted some three hours earlier, probably in the hotel
kitchen, for, as was his invariable custom, he was on the best of terms
with the servants; and for all that he had spent the intervening hours
on the uncovered slimy rocks, was in his usual state of spotless
cleanliness. He is the one living boy to whom dirt does not cling.

"How have you been amusing yourself?" said his father, his stern face
lighting up with a delightful smile.

"I'm still teaching Blazer to be a bloodhound. He's slow--very slow."

Blazer cocked an apologetic ear and sniffed.

"It must be tiring work."

"Yes," said Tinker sadly, and his eyes wandered slowly along the shore.

Sir Tancred flipped the ash off his cigar.

"Those Biggleswades are beasts!" Tinker broke out suddenly when his
eyes fell on them. "They treat that little girl of theirs shamefully!
When I went to bed last night she was crying again. She always is. I
don't believe she's their little girl at all. I believe they've stolen
her."

"The deuce!" cried Sir Tancred, and catching up his _Daily Telegraph_,
he read again the Marmalade Millionaire's advertisement. It ran:

4000 POUND REWARD. 4000 POUND REWARD. 4000 POUND REWARD.

The above sum will be paid to any person giving information leading to
the recovery of Elizabeth E. Kernaby, aged seven years. She strayed or
was stolen in Kensington Gardens between the hours of 10 and 11 a