closed the door between the two rooms and the boys heard him rummaging
around among his possessions. Then came a wild cry.

"It's gone! It's gone! My tin box is gone!"

"Your tin box?" repeated Songbird, as the old man threw open the door.

"Yes! yes! The fellow has robbed me! Oh, this is dreadful! What
shall I do? I am a poor man! Oh, I'll have to go to the poorhouse!"
And the miser commenced to wring his hands.

"What did you have in the box?" questioned Sam.

"I had--some--er--some money, and some--er--jewelry," faltered Hiram
Duff. He was a very secretive man naturally and it galled him to make
the admission.

"How much money, Mr. Duff?"

"Oh, a--er--quite some. Oh, this is too bad! What shall I do? This
will ruin me! Oh, where is that rascal? How can I catch him?" and the
old man ran around the kitchen, staring at one thing and another, and
at the boys.

"This must be Tom's work," whispered Sam to Songbird. "I wonder what I
had best do about it?"

"Wait until you are sure it was Tom," advised the would-be poet.

Sam commenced to question the old miser regarding the looks of the
fellow who had visited him. He soon became convinced that it must have
been Tom. Clearly his brother must now be completely out of his mind.

"Poor, poor Tom," he sighed. "If he is going to act this way, what
will he do next? I wish I could find him, and that Dick was here to
help me to take care of him and clear up this mess."

"I don't know what I'm a-going to do," whined Hiram Duff. "I gotter
find that box."

"How big a box was it?" questioned Sam.

"'Twasn't so very big--a fellow could put it in his pocket. But it had
gold--I mean money--in it, and my dead wife's jewelry."

"How much money, Mr. Duff?"

"What business is that of yours?" demanded the miser, suspiciously.

"Why, I think--maybe I can help you get it back," stammered Sam. He
grew red in the face. "To tell the plain truth, I think I know who
that fellow was."

"Who?"

"Tell me what you lost first."

"Well, if you must know, that box had three hundred dollars in gold in
it, besides the jewelry. That my wife got from her folks when they
died, and they said it was wuth over a hundred dollars."

"Is that all?"

"Ain't that enough? Land sakes! I ain't no millionaire! That gold
was a-going to keep me from the poorhouse." And Hiram Duff shook his
head dolefully. He did not tell the young collegiates that he had an
even ten tho