fed it into his trousers pocket and began unbuttoning his coat.
Suddenly he stopped.

"Say," he sputtered. "S'pose there should be a robbery on my beat?"

"That would be fine," said Gladwin. "I'd be a credit to you."

"Or a murder?"

"Better still."

"Oh, the risk is awful," groaned Phelan. He started to button up his
coat again when Rose's taunt came back to him. This time the tempter
delivered a vital blow and he tore off his uniform coat and passed it
to the young man. Gladwin slipped it on over his other clothes. It
fitted snugly. It just happened that the suit he wore was dark blue
and his trousers matched accurately.

"Now the bonnet," he said, reaching for the uniform cap and removing
it from Phelan's head.

"And now officer, your sword." He grasped the proffered belt and
buckled it on with a flourish, making as natty a figure of a cub
policeman as one would want to meet.

Phelan stood looking on dumbly, his face a study in conflicting
emotions. Barnes's admiration of his friend's nerve was beyond power
of words. When Gladwin started for the doorway, however, he called
after him:

"Hey there, Travers, where are you going?"

"On duty," he responded cheerily. "And by the way, Whitney, give Mr.
Phelan that tray and decanter and see that he goes down into the
kitchen and stays there until my return. You remain on guard up here.
I'll look after the outside. So long, mates."

"Hold on," Phelan called out feebly. "I'd like to know what the divvil
it all means. I'm fair hypnotized."

"It means," said Gladwin, pausing and turning his head, "that I'm
going outside to wait for myself--and if I find myself, I'll arrest
myself--if both myself and I have to go to jail for it. Now, do you
get me?"

"No, I'll be damned if I do!" gurgled Phelan, but the words had
scarcely passed his lips when the departmental guise of Officer 666
vanished from sight and the front door slammed with a bang.

CHAPTER XXII.

A MILLIONAIRE POLICEMAN ON PATROL.

Travers Gladwin went bounding down the steps of his own pretentious
marble dwelling with an airy buoyancy that would have caused Sergt.
McGinnis to turn mental back handsprings had he happened to be going
by on his rounds. But, fortunately, McGinnis had passed on his
inspection tour shortly before Michael Phelan had been summoned by
Bateato. For three hours at least Officer 666 would be supreme on his
beat.

While the McGinnis contingency had never entered young