d
instalment, and the captain and lieutenant looked at each other and
shook their heads.

"Big much pleece!" shrieked Bateato, made some more motions with his
hands and rushed out into the street.

"It's Jap whiskey," said the captain, musingly, utterly unimpressed.
"He isn't crazy. That Jap whiskey's awful stuff. They licked the
Russian army on it. He'll run it off. If you ever see a Jap runnin'
you'll know what's the matter."

Bateato ran a block and then stopped.

"Hell damn!" he exploded. "I no tell where house."

He ran back to the station and burst in again with even more
precipitation.

"I no tell house," he rattled off. "Mr. Gladwin--Travers Gladwin.
Big lot white house--Fifth avenue--eighty, eighty, eighty.
Quick--thieves--ladies!" and he was gone again before Captain Stone
could remove his cigar from his face.

The captain looked at the lieutenant and the lieutenant looked at the
captain.

"Maybe he ain't drunk, Captain," ventured the lieutenant. "There's
that Gladwin house on the books. It's marked closed and there's a note
about a million-dollar collection of paintings."

The captain thought a moment and then burst into action:

"Call the reserves and get the patrol wagon," he shouted. "I remember
that Jap. I guess there's something doing. I'll go myself."

As the reserves were all asleep and the horses had to be hitched to
the patrol wagon Bateato had a big start of his big much pleece.

Notwithstanding the breathless condition in which he had arrived at
the station house, his return journey was accomplished at his dizziest
speed. Also he arrived back at the house way in advance of Whitney
Barnes. There was a reason.

Wearing a frock coat and a silk hat and carrying a cane (of course he
called it _stick_) one is hardly equipped for marathoning. And if you
must know more, Whitney's small clothes were too fashionably tight to
permit of more than a swift heel and toe action. At this he was doing
admirably in his passionate haste to return and warn his friend
Gladwin when another woman came into his life and appealed for
succor.

Three in one evening, when he was perfectly satisfied to stop at
one--the bewitching Sadie.

No. 3 was of an entirely different type from No. 1 and No. 2, and,
happily for Whitney, there was no yowling bundle this time--merely a
cat, and a silent cat at that.

She was a plump little woman and rather comely and she was intensely
excited, for the cat in the case wa