ying for the
shines.

"Do you mean you will give us both a shine for five cents?" said Peter.

"Yes," drawled Bob, lazily.

"Well, see that they are good ones, now, or I'll not pay you a cent."

Bob commenced work on the shoes very leisurely. He seemed the embodiment
of stupidity, and blundered along in every way possible to prolong the
time.

"How would you like to climb down, Mort, and shine shoes for a living?"
said Peter Smartweed, jokingly.

"Perhaps I wouldn't mind it if I was stupid as the kid fumbling around
your shoes seems to be," replied Felix, in a more serious mood than his
companion.

[Illustration: BOB HUNTER PLAYS THE DETECTIVE.]

"Well, I think you looked even more stupid than this young Arab last
night, when you lay upon the floor."

"Well, I guess you would have felt stupid, too, if you had got such a
clip as I did," retorted Felix, as he nursed his swollen jaw with his
hand.

"It was a stunning blow, for a fact. John L. Sullivan couldn't have done
it neater. I didn't think, Mort, that that young countryman could hit
such a clip, did you?"

"No, I didn't; and I'm mighty sure you don't realize now what a stinging
blow he hit me. You talk about it as if it didn't amount to much. Well,
all I've got to say is, I don't want to see you mauled so, but I wish
you knew how good it felt to be floored the way I was."

"No, thank you," said Peter; "I don't want any of it. But you looked so
comical, as you fell sprawling, that I couldn't help laughing. I believe
I would have laughed if you had been killed."

Bob Hunter's ears were now wide open.

"I couldn't see anything to laugh about," said Felix, bitterly.

"That isn't very strange, either. You naturally wouldn't, under the
circumstances," laughed young Smartweed.

"Come, now, let up," said Felix. "Your turn may come."

"I expect it will, if this young farmer ever gets after me."

"But you don't expect him to get out, do you?"

"I hadn't thought much about it. My part of the programme was to get him
into old Gunwagner's den, and I did it without any accident."

Felix looked hard at his companion. He knew the last part of this
sentence was a sarcastic thrust at him.

Bob grew excited, and found it difficult to restrain himself. He felt
certain now that these two young villains were talking about his friend
Herbert Randolph.

"No accident would have happened to me, either, if he hadn't hit me
unawares," protested young Mortimer, with