tomer thanked him and took his departure. The check was sent to
the bank, the bank certified it, then cancelled its certification and
returned the check to Rogers, Peet & Company, and the store detectives,
having communicated with Police Headquarters, anxiously awaited the
arrival of Mr. Lang's messenger.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Envelope on the back of which Parker's forged
order was written.]

Their efforts were rewarded a couple of days later by the appearance at
the store of a lad who presented a written order (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2)
inscribed upon the back of an envelope bearing a cancelled stamp and
addressed to Geo. B. Lang, No. 13 West Twenty-sixth Street, New York
City, which read as follows:

ROGERS, PEET & Co.

Please give to bearer the clothes I purchased on
Tuesday--suit--pants--S. coat, and also kindly put change in
envelope in inside coat pocket. Trusting the alterations are
satisfactory, and thanking you in advance for the favor and for past
courtesies, I am,

Resp. yours,

GEO. B. LANG.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Parker's order on Rogers, Peet & Company, in the
name of Lang.]

The boy was immediately placed under arrest, and after proclaiming his
own innocence and vociferating that he was only doing an errand for a
"gent," who was waiting close by, was directed to return with his bundle
as if nothing had occurred. This he did, and Mr. George B. Lang was
soon in the clutches of the law.

Interrogated by his captors, the supposed Lang admitted that his real
name was James Parker, that he lived at 110 West Thirty-eighth Street,
and only requested that his wife be immediately notified of what had
happened. At Headquarters the prisoner was identified as a gentleman who
had been very actively engaged during the preceding months in passing
bad checks throughout the city, his more recent operations having
consisted in cashing a check on the Lincoln National Bank for $160 on
July 20th, one for $290 on the same bank on July 30th, still another for
$510.50 on August 4th, and one for $440.50 on the National Shoe and
Leather Bank, "to bearer," on August 8th. This last, in some
inexplicable way, had been cashed at the very bank itself.

Believing that the forger had at last been caught, the precinct
detectives later on, during the evening of Parker's arrest, visited no
West Thirty-eighth Street, and on inquiring for "Mrs. Parker," were
introduced to a young girl of attractive