oholic miscellany per day and be none the worse for it. The
major premise of his proposition was perfectly correct. He proved it
daily. The minor premise was an error. Bets were even in the Toledo
clubs as to whether delirium tremens or paresis would win the event
around young Mr. Hoff's kite-shaped race-track of a brain.

With his tastes the income of twenty-five thousand dollars per
annum which his father allowed him from the profits of "Dr. Hoff's
Catarrh-Killer," proved sadly insufficient to his needs. He mentioned
this fact to his father, so Average Jones' information ran, early in
April, and suggested an increase, only to be refused with some acerbity.

"Oh, very well," said he, "I'll go and make it myself."

The amazement inspired in Doctor Hoff's mind by this pronouncement was
augmented in the next few days by the fact that Roderick was very busy
about town in his motor-car, and was changed to vivid alarm immediately
thereafter by the young man's disappearance. To all intents and
appearances, Roderick Hoff had dropped off the earth on or about April
twelfth. By April fifteenth New York, Pittsburg, Chicago, Washington and
other clearing-houses for the distribution of the unspent increment were
apprised of the elder Hoff's five thousand-dollar anxiety through the
medium of the daily press. This advertisement it was, upon the practical
merits of which Average Jones and his confidential clerk had differed.

"If there were any chance of sport in it," mused Average Jones, "I'd go
in. But to follow the trail of a spurious young sport from bar-room to
brothel and from brothel to gambling hell--" He shook his head. "Not
good enough," he repeated.

Simpson's face appeared at the door. His blond forehead was wrinkled
with excitement.

"Doctor Hoff is here, Mr. Jones. I told him you couldn't see him, but he
wouldn't take no. Says he was recommended to you by a former client."

Following the word, there burst into Average Jones' private sanctum a
gross old man, silk-hatted and bediamonded, whose side-whiskers bristled
whitely with perturbed self-importance. In his hand was a patchy bundle.

"They tried to stop me!" he sputtered. "Me! I'm worth ten million
dollars, an' a ten-dollar-a-week office toad tries to hold me up when I
come here myself person'ly, from Toledo to see you."

Analysis of advertising in all its forms had inspired Average Jones
with a profound contempt and dislike for the cruelest of all forms of
s