a pause. "It aint so very much when you think of what we're to get for
it."

"That's the right way to look at it, ma'am. I'll just draw up the
receipt, and to-morrow I'll call at the Gallinipper Laundry to get some
further particulars necessary to help me make out the papers."

Mr. Tobey seemed to be somewhat at a loss to know precisely what was the
net result of the proceedings in which he had thus far taken so small a
part, but upon being directed by Mrs. Tobey to produce the hundred
dollars, he ventured a feeble remonstrance. This was immediately checked
by Mrs. Tobey, who assured him that he knew nothing whatever about such
matters and never could come to the point, which he ought to be able to
do by this time, for nobody could say but that she had done her part. At
last two fifty-dollar bills were deposited in Mr. Jayres's soft palm and
a bit of writing was handed over to Mrs. Tobey in exchange for them; and
followed by Mr. Jayres's warm insistence that they had never done a
better thing in their lives, the Tobeys withdrew.

It was nearly six o'clock when the door of Mr. Jayres's office opened
again and the shocky head of Bootsey appeared. Mr. Jayres was waiting
for him.

"Here you are at last, you wretched little scamp!" he cried. "Didn't I
tell you I'd whale you if you weren't back by five o'clock?"

"I come jest as soon 's I could," said Bootsey. "He was a werry fly ole
gen'l'man."

"What did he say?"

"He said he didn't hev no doubts but wot you was a reg'lar villyum an'
swin'ler, an' cheat an' blackmailer, an' ef he had de user his eyes an'
legs he'd come down yere an' han' you over ter de coppers; dat you aint
smart enuff ter get no money outer him, fer he's bin bled by sich coveys
like you all he's a-going ter bleed, an' dat he don't b'lieve dere is
any sech ting as de Bugwug estate nohow, an' ef yer wants ter keep
outen jail yer'd better let him an' his folks alone."

Mr. Jayres scowled until it seemed as if his black eyebrows would meet
his bristly upper lip, and then he said: "Bootsey, before you come to
the office to-morrow morning you'd better go to the Gallinipper Laundry
in Washington Place, and tell a man named Tobey who keeps it,
that--er--that I've gone out of town for a few days, Bootsey, on a
pressing matter of business."

III.

BLUDOFFSKI.

The friends of Mr. Richard O'Royster always maintained that he was the
best of good fellows. Many, indeed, went so far as to say he had