his client at the Stuffer
House. They sat that afternoon in a corner of the writing-room adjoining
the large living-room.

"Yes, I think you have done well," replied Mr. Tescheron. "But how much
have I paid you altogether? About one thousand eight hundred dollars,
isn't it?"

"Yes, or a trifle more or less, one way or the other. I can't remember
just now. It has involved me in heavy expense, this case has, Mr.
Tescheron. If I had it to do over again, I could not possibly quote such
favorable terms for our facilities--I could not possibly. No, sir, I
could not possibly think of doing so." Mr. Smith's emphasis took the
form of dwindling repetition so common to men of business, who have hold
of the best end of the bargain, and have decided to keep their hold.

"Well, in the fish business, one thousand eight hundred dollars stands
for enough to feed ten thousand people," remarked Mr. Tescheron, glumly.
"I feel as if it ought to pay for a lot of detective work. I am sorry
you think you are so underpaid."

There was a trace of a sneer that Mr. Smith did not like, and as he held
the upper hand in the detective business he did not need to tolerate
such conduct in his client.

"Perhaps we'd better call the thing off," said Mr. Smith. "You and your
family remain here--or you might go down to Lakewood. In that way you
will escape much of the disagreeable notoriety--quite a good deal of
it, at any rate. Yes, sir, a considerable amount of it."

Mr. Smith snapped some documentary-looking papers, and as he drew his
lips together and nervously twisted his head, he thrust the papers deep
in an inside pocket. They contained a memorandum of the estimated price
for engineering the return of the Tescheron family to New York under an
iron-clad guarantee of protection.

But the sarcasm was more of an irritant than the client could stand.

"See here, Smith, you talk to me in a way I don't like"; and Mr.
Tescheron glared as he became more combative than he had ever been in
his dealings with this prosperous leech. "I don't care to have you
threaten me in this underhanded manner. Perhaps I have been a fool to
have placed so much confidence in you from the start. You have kept me
scared and away from my home for five weeks, and now you hint that the
end is not in sight. We are all sick and tired of this place. Hoboken is
no paradise, let me tell you. I am bored to death here. For the money
paid to you to date, you have produced nothing b