rgency barkeeper was but newly launched upon his
description of Mead's face, when the chambermaid, who was also the
waitress and housekeeper, broke in upon them with the intelligence that
never in all her born days _or_ nights had she seen anything like the
face of the young lady on the third floor.

"What's the matter with her," said the clerk suspiciously, with a look
which warned Jimmie to be at once a Bingham and a Sherlock Holmes.

"Why, Horace," she answered tragically, "that girl has two of the most
awful black eyes. The whites of them is red and then comes purple and
green and yellow. I guess they was meant to be blue."

This chromatic scale was too much for Jimmie. He reeled where he sat and
then, the postman opportunely arriving, sent word to Mrs. Jimmie that
duty would keep him from her all the night.

"Tell her," he huskily charged his messenger, "that there is suspicious
circumstances going on in this house."

"You bet there is," the clerk agreed. "It looks like a case of attempted
murder to me."

"Divorce, more likely," was Jimmie's professional opinion, but he had
scant time to enlarge upon it before the waitress, outraged to the point
of tears, broke out of her domain. She brought with her an atmosphere of
long-dead beefsteak, chops and onions, and she shrilled for an answer to
her question.

"What's the matter with 'em anyway? Ain't the dining-room good enough
for 'em to eat in? It done all right for Judge Campbell's funeral this
afternoon, and I found a real sweet wreath on that there whatnot in the
corner. The candles wasn't all burnt up neither, an' I set out four of
'em on the four corners. It looks elegant, an' them tube-roses smells
grand. An' when I told that young lady what's got the use of her eyes
how glad I was they happened in when we was so well fixed for
decorations, she looked awful funny. Most like she was cross-eyed."

"They all seem to have eye-trouble," Jimmie commented. "Do you suppose
they're running away from one of these here blind asylums."

"Lunatic asylum, most likely," the cheerful clerk contributed.

When the other two guests ceased from traveling in molasses and
sarsaparilla and returned to their quiet hostelry, all these surmises
had hardened into certainties, and were imparted to them with a new maze
of suspicion, more dense, more deadly, and more strictly in accordance
with the principles laid down in "Dandy Dick, the Boy Detective."

Madeline, the waitress, r