"I did once--many times once--but they would have none of my
high-faluting flights, although as Captain Mayne Plunkett, the writer
of penny dreadfuls for the consumption of England's budding pirates
and cowpunchers, I am not without a following, and I have a steady
contract for one per month at fifty dollars straight. To a New York
girls' journal, I am not unkindly thought of as Aunt Christina in the
Replies to the Love Lorn column,--five dollars per--."

He laughed reflectively.

"But don't you work?" asked Phil innocently.

"Work! Lord, isn't that work a-plenty?"

"Yes, but work that pays in real dollars and cents."

"Ah!" Langford's eyes swept the ceiling. "Meantime, I am what you
might call Assistant to the Government Agent. God knows how long he
will suffer me. He is a real good sort, and doesn't expect too much
for his money either in time or in ability. I knock about fifty
dollars a month out of him when I work, and that, with the fifty with
which my old dad so benevolently pensions me, together with fifty for
every 'penny horrible' I write, I contrive to eke out a scanty
living.

"You've got to work, too, Ralston; haven't you?"

"Work or starve!" answered Phil.

"I hate to think of any man having to work," mused Langford, "but if
starve is the only alternative, why, I guess you've got to find a job.
Got anything in view?"

"No!"

"Particular about what you tackle?"

"Not at all!"

"All right! I've to be at the Court House at five o'clock. Kick your
heels around this little burg for a few hours and I'll try to scare up
something for you. But don't get into mischief."

He rose, knocked the ashes out of his pipe on the heel of his boot at
the stove, and put on his hat.

He turned at the door.

"Say, Ralston! It won't be any pen-pushing job, mark you. You have to
get your muscle up, for there's something I want you to do when you
are good and fit."

"And what is that?"

"Tell you later. So long!"

A few minutes later Phil got his hat from the hall-rack and strolled
leisurely out, taking the road down the hill toward the main street of
the town.

He passed a red brick building which bore the aristocratic title on a
large painted sign over the doorway, "Municipal Hall." He looked at
the windows. Hanging on one of them, in the inside, was a black card
with gilt letters, "Mayor Brenchfield."

Phil's under lip shot out and his brow wrinkled. His hand travelled to
his hip pocket, as a nervous