alf of him."

That reaches his funnybone, too. "You're perfectly right, young man,"
says he; "but I happen to be his son. Now are you satisfied?"

"Nope," says I. "That bluff don't go either. If you was Mr. Robert I'd
have been struck by lightnin' long 'fore this. You've got one more
guess."

Just then I hears a gurgle, like some one's bein' choked with a chicken
bone, and I squints around behind. There was Piddie, lookin' like the
buildin' was fallin' down and tryin' to uncork some remarks.

"Ah, Piddie!" says the gent. "Perhaps you will introduce me to your new
sentry and give me the password."

Well, Piddie did. He almost got on his hands and knees doin' it. And
say, blamed if the duck wa'n't Mr. Robert, after all!

"Gee!" says I, "that was a bad break."

That didn't soothe Piddie, though. He used up the best part of an hour
tryin' to tell me what an awful thing I'd gone and done.

"This ends you, young man!" he says. "You're as good as discharged this
very moment."

"Is that all?" says I. "Why, by the way you've been takin' on I figured
on nothin' less than sudden death. But if it's only bein' fired, don't
you worry. I've had that happen to me so often that I get uneasy without
it. If I should wear a stripe for every time the can's been tied to me,
my sleeves would look like a couple of barber's poles. Cheer up, Piddie!
Maybe they'll let you pick out somethin' that suits you better next
time."

He couldn't get over it, though. Along about lunch time he comes out to
me, as solemn as though he's servin' a warrant for homicide, and says
that Mr. Robert will attend to my case now.

"Piddie," says I, givin' him the partin' grip, "you've been a true
friend of mine. When you hear me hit the asphalt, send out for a
chocolate ice cream soda and drown your sorrow."

Then I turns down a page in "Old Sleuth's Revenge" and goes to the
slaughter.

Mr. Robert has just talked about three cylinders full of answers to the
letters that's piled up while he's been gone, and as the girl goes out
with the records he whirls around in the mahogany easy-chair and takes a
good long look at me.

"If it comes as hard as all that," says I, "I'll write out my
resignation."

"Mr. Piddie's been talking to you, I suppose?" says he.

"He's done everything but say mass over me," says I.

"Piddie is a good deal of an----" then he pulls up. "Where the deuce
did he find you?"

"It wasn't him found me," says I; "it was a case of me