isn't,
the bail-bond will. They'll have that to console themselves with,
anyway."

[Illustration: "MADAME TULITZ, I AM YOUR HUMBLE AND OBEDIENT SERVANT."]

"Where are we to go?" asked Corinne.

"To the police court. I'll show you; but when we get there you mustn't
ask me any questions. Ask anybody else but me. I'm always very ignorant
in the police court--never know anything, except my answers to the
surety examination. Those I always learn by heart. Now--" he turned to
the guard, and said parenthetically, "All right, my boy," whereupon the
guard disappeared. "Now, just take my arm, if you please; you needn't be
afraid, ha! ha! I'm old, and wont hurt you. You see, we must be friends,
old friends. Bless you, my child, I've known you from a baby, knew your
father before you, dear old boy, and promised him on his dying bed I'd
be a father to his--er--by the way, my dear, what's your name?"

"Corinne. Do you want my maiden name?"

"No, never mind that. I always supply a maiden name myself when I deal
with ladies, on the ground, you see, that it's much better to keep real
names out of bail-bonds, even where they don't signify. In fact, the
less real you put in, anyhow, the better. My signature must be on as
many as a thousand bail-bonds first and last, in this city, Boston,
Chicago, San Francisco, and other places, and I've never yet experienced
the slightest trouble. I think my good fortune is almost wholly due to
the circumstance that I never repeat myself. I always tell a new story
every time."

"Do they know you at the place where we're going?"

"I fervently hope they don't, my dear. It wouldn't do M. Tulitz any
good, or me either, if they did. No, no, you must introduce me. I am
your friend, your lifelong friend, Colonel Edward Lawrence Rivers. I am
a retired merchant. Formerly I dealt in hides--perhaps you had better
say in skins, my dear; on second thought, it might be more appropriate
to say in skins, and then again it would be more accurate. I like to
tell the truth when I can conveniently and without prejudice to the
rights of the defendant. If I haven't dealt in skins as much as any
other man on the face of the earth, then I don't know what a skin is.
Ha! ha! my dear, I think that's pretty good for an old man whose wits
are nearly given out with the work that has been imposed upon them. Let
me say right here that the clerk of the court is a knowing fellow, and
you want to mind your p's and q's. You want t