ft for the time being, sat the
proprietress whom he instantly recognized as "Mrs. Sturgis, formerly of
Lansing," and at a littered table beside her, checking up a collection
of bills, sat a redheaded girl wearing glasses and whose honest face was
illuminated by a friendly grin showing fine teeth, but who Jimmy
remembered as one always to be seen behind the counter in Lansing.

"I hope you remember me too, Mr. Gollop," she said, after he had
automatically shaken hands with her mother. "I'm Nellie Sturgis. The one
you used to call 'Sturgis Number Two,'" and the friendly simper she gave
him was about as welcome as a punctured tire in a road race.

CHAPTER V

Had Jim Gollop kept a diary, the entries for certain dates might have
ran thus: "Friday: Stood all day in front of Martha Putnam Hotel,
waiting for Candy Girl to come in or out. Very observant small boys in
neighborhood, and policeman who begins to suspect. No luck.

"Saturday: Stood all day in front of Martha Putnam hotel, waiting for
Candy Girl to come in or out. Small boys a nuisance. Policeman asked me
if I'd lost anything in that neighborhood. No luck.

"Sunday: Stood all day in front of Martha Putnam hotel waiting for Candy
Girl to come in or out. Boys not so bad. New cop asks questions. Gave
new cop a five.

"Monday: Got to Martha Putnam early, and at ten o'clock saw taxi arrive
and ducked across street, and----"

He never could have written the rest of it; for from the taxi there
descended a young lady who handed a light suit case to the porter, asked
him to pay the bill, and would have entered the Martha Putnam had she
not discovered a man nearly blocking her path, with an extended hand,
and with an ingratiating smile on his face, who said, "How lucky to meet
you just as I was about to leave. How are you?"

The policeman on the corner grinned, pulled his mustache, winked at
himself, jingled the change in his pocket left from that grateful five,
and then swung up his hand to caution the taxi driver as the latter
turned into the cross street.

"You're a nice one, I must say," she remarked, half petulantly. "You
might at least have dropped me a note to ask how I am getting along, and
whether I am industrious, and all that rot! But did you? No! You took me
to the horse show, and back to the hotel, and then vanished as if you
had withdrawn yourself into your musty old shell!"

It was on the very tip of his tongue to tell her there on the street o