much at
home and very certain of his welcome.

A casual student of human nature would have guessed him to be a
traveling salesman, finely equipped with nerve and with confidence in
his own goods. The average servant would have been vastly impressed
with his air of self assurance; and would have admitted him to the
house, without question. (The long-memoried warden of Auburn Prison
would have recognized him as Alf Dugan, one of the cleverest automobile
thieves in the East.)

Mr. Dugan was an industrious young man; as well as ingenious. And he
had a streak of quick-witted audacity which made him an ornament to his
chosen profession. His method of work was simple. Coming to a rural
neighborhood, he would stop at some local hotel, and, armed with clever
patter and a sheaf of automobile insurance documents, would make the
rounds of the region's better-class homes.

At these he sold no automobile insurance; though he made seemingly
earnest efforts to do so. But he learned the precise location of each
garage; the cars therein; and the easiest way to the highroad, and any
possible obstacles to a hasty flight thereto. Usually, he succeeded in
persuading his reluctant host to take him to the garage to look at the
cars and to estimate the insurable value of each. While there, it was
easy to palm a key or to get a good look at the garage padlock for
future skeleton-key reference; or to note what sort of car-locks were
used.

A night or two later, the garage was entered and the best car was
stolen. Dugan, like love, laughed at locksmiths.

Sometimes,--notably in places where dogs were kept,--he would make his
initial visit and then, choosing a time when he had seen some of the
house's occupants go for a walk with their dogs, would enter by broad
daylight, and take a chance at getting the car out, unobserved. If he
were interrupted before starting off in the machine, why, he was that
same polite insurance aunt who had come back to revise his estimate on
the premium needed for the car; and was taking another look at it to
make certain. Once in the driver's seat and with the engine going, he
had no fear of capture. A whizzing rush to the highroad and down it to
the point where his confederate waited with the new number-plates; and
he could snap his fat fingers at pursuit.

Dugan had called at the Place, a week earlier. He had taken interested
note of the little garage's two cars and of the unlocked garage doors.
He had taken le