le's troubles
had swarmed down upon him in answer to his advertised offer of help,
as sparrows flock to scattered bread crumbs. Mostly these were of the
lesser order of difficulties; but for what he gave in advice and help
the Ad-Visor took payment in experience and knowledge of human nature.
Still it was the hard, honest study, and the helpful toil which held him
to his task, rather than the romance and adventure which he had hoped
for and Waldemar had foretold--until, in a quiet, street in Brooklyn, of
which he had never so much as heard, there befell that which, first of
many events, justified the prophetic Waldemar and gave Average Jones
a part in the greater drama of the metropolis. The party of the second
part was the Honorable William Linder.

Mr., Linder sat at five P. m., of an early summer day, behind lock and
bolt. The third floor front room of his ornate mansion on Brooklyn's
Park Slope was dedicated to peaceful thought. Sprawled in a huge and
softly upholstered chair at the window, he took his ease in his house.
The chair had been a recent gift from an anonymous admirer whose
political necessities, the Honorable Mr. Linder idly surmised, had
not yet driven him to reveal his identity. Its occupant stretched his
shoeless feet, as was his custom, upon the broad window-sill, flooded by
the seasonable warmth of sunshine, the while he considered the ripening
mayoralty situation. He found it highly satisfactory. In the language of
his inner man, it was a cinch.

Below, in Kennard Street, a solitary musician plodded. His
pretzel-shaped brass rested against his shoulder. He appeared to be the
"scout" of one of those prevalent and melancholious German bands, which,
under Brooklyn's easy ordinances, are privileged to draw echoes of the
past writhing from their forgotten recesses. The man looked slowly about
him as if apprising potential returns. His gravid glance encountered
the prominent feet in the third story window of the Linder mansion, and
rested. He moved forward. Opposite the window he paused. He raised the
mouthpiece to his lips and embarked on a perilous sea of notes from
which the tutored ear might have inferred that once popular ditty,
Egypt.

Love of music was not one of the Honorable William Linder's attributes.
An irascible temper was. Of all instruments the B-flat trombone
possesses the most nerve-jarring tone. The master of the mansion leaped
from his restful chair. Where his feet had ornamented th