or valuables?"

"Well, not exactly, miss. But havin' a tip helps, an' ef there ain't no
soup to pour--"

"Soup?" inquired Muriel, wrinkling her pretty brows.

"That's the juice we pour into the cracks of a safe to blow out the lid
with," The Hopper elucidated. "Ut's a lot handier ef you've got the
combination. Ut usually ain't jes' layin' around."

"I should hope not!" exclaimed Muriel.

She took a sheet of paper from the leathern stationery rack and fell to
scribbling, while he furtively eyed the window and again put from him the
thought of flight.

"There! That's the combination of papa's safe." She turned her wrist and
glanced at her watch. "It's half-past eleven and you can catch a trolley
in ten minutes that will take you right past papa's house. The butler's an
old man who forgets to lock the windows half the time, and there's one in
the conservatory with a broken catch. I noticed it to-day when I was
thinking about stealing the jar myself!"

They were established on so firm a basis of mutual confidence that when he
rose and walked to the table she didn't lift her eyes from the paper on
which she was drawing a diagram of her father's house. He stood watching
her nimble fingers, fascinated by the boldness of her plan for restoring
amity between Shaver's grandfathers, and filled with admiration for her
resourcefulness.

He asked a few questions as to exits and entrances and fixed in his mind a
very accurate picture of the home of her father. She then proceeded to
enlighten him as to the ways and means of entering the home of her
father-in-law, which she sketched with equal facility.

"There's a French window--a narrow glass door--on the veranda. I think you
might get in _there!_" She made a jab with the pencil. "Of course I should
hate awfully to have you get caught! But you must have had a lot of
experience, and with all the help I'm giving you--!"

A sudden lifting of her head gave him the full benefit of her eyes and he
averted his gaze reverently.

"There's always a chance o' bein' nabbed, miss," he suggested with
feeling.

Shaver's mother wielded the same hypnotic power, highly intensified, that
he had felt in Shaver. He knew that he was going to attempt what she
asked; that he was committed to the project of robbing two houses merely
to please a pretty young woman who invited his cooeperation at the point of
a revolver!

"Papa's always a sound sleeper," she was saying. "When I was a little girl