the ladies realized at the moment what cheery, safe,
reliable people policemen in blue are, and what a friendly, familiar
shelter they offer against the wiles of Oriental occultism.

"Are they old criminals?" someone asked.

"Yes, ma'am. They've worked this same thing in four cities already, and
both of them have done time, and lots of it. They've only been out six
months. No need to worry over them," he concluded with a shrug of the
shoulders.

So the furs were restored and the gold and the jewels parcelled out
among the owners, and in due course Mr. Yahi-Bahi and Mr. Ram Spudd
were lifted up into the patrol wagon where they seated themselves with
a composure worthy of the best traditions of Jehumbabah and
Bahoolapore. In fact, Mr. Spudd was heard to address the police as
"boys," and to remark that they had "got them good" that time.

So the seance ended and the guests vanished, and the Yahi-Bahi Society
terminated itself without even a vote of dissolution.

And in all the later confidential discussions of the episode only one
point of mysticism remained. After they had time really to reflect on
it, free from all danger of arrest, the members of the society realized
that on one point the police were entirely off the truth of things. For
Mr. Yahi-Bahi, whether a thief or not, and whether he came from the
Orient, or, as the police said, from Missouri, had actually succeeded
in reastralizing Buddha.

Nor was anyone more emphatic on this point than Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown
herself.

"For after all," she said, "if it was not Buddha, who was it?"

And the question was never answered.

CHAPTER FIVE: The Love Story of Mr. Peter Spillikins

Almost any day, on Plutoria Avenue or thereabouts, you may see little
Mr. Spillikins out walking with his four tall sons, who are practically
as old as himself.

To be exact, Mr. Spillikins is twenty-four, and Bob, the oldest of the
boys, must be at least twenty. Their exact ages are no longer known,
because, by a dreadful accident, their mother forgot them. This was at
a time when the boys were all at Mr. Wackem's Academy for Exceptional
Youths in the foothills of Tennessee, and while their mother, Mrs.
Everleigh, was spending the winter on the Riviera and felt that for
their own sake she must not allow herself to have the boys with her.

But now, of course, since Mrs. Everleigh has remarried and become Mrs.
Everleigh-Spillikins there is no need to keep them at Mr. Wackem's an