if you can
show twenty-six."

"Oh, well! I suppose I can't get away until baby tries the new toy.
But hurry up, will you?"

The Marshal put his lips to the spout and blew. Instantly, from the
hole under the lid, a great cloud of flour shot out, covering his face
and head, and deluging his garments. From up and down the street came
shouts of joy, and the Marshal, brushing at his face, grinned.

"One on me, Billy," he said, good-naturedly, patting the flour out of
his hair, "and just when I was coming to put you onto some fun, too.
What do you know about the Griscom un-burglary?"

"Not a thing!" Billy said. "Tell me."

"I didn't expect you would know anything about it," said the Marshal
with a wink. "But how about putting Correspondence School Detective
Gubb onto the job?"

"Fine!" said Billy. "Tell me what the un-burgled Griscom thing is, and
I'll do the rest."

Billy found Philo Gubb at work in the house on Tenth Street, hanging
paper on the second floor, and the lank detective looked at Billy
solemnly as the story of the Griscom affair was explained to him.

"When I started in takin' lessons from the Rising Sun Deteckative
Agency's Correspondence School of Deteckating," said Mr. Gubb
solemnly, "I aimed to do a strictly retail business in deteckating,
and let the wholesale alone."

"Seeing that you learned by mail," said Billy Getz, "I should think
you'd be better fitted to do a mail-order business."

"Them terms of retail and wholesale is my own," said Mr. Gubb.

"You don't believe anybody would un-burgle a house, I guess," said
Billy.

"Yes, I do," Philo Gubb said. "A fellow can tie a knot, or he can
un-tie it, can't he? He can hitch a horse, or he can un-hitch it. And
if a man can burgle, he can un-burgle. A mercenary burglar would
naturally burgle things out of a house after he had burgled himself
in, but a generous-hearted burglar would just as naturally un-burgle
things into a house and then un-burgle himself out. That stands to
reason."

"Of course it does," said Billy Getz. "And I knew you would see it
that way."

"I see things reasonable," said Philo Gubb. "But I guess I won't take
up the case; un-burgling ain't no common crime. It ain't mentioned in
the twelve lessons I got from the Rising Sun Correspondence School. I
wouldn't hardly know how to go about catching an un-burglar--"

"Just do the opposite from what it says to do to catch a burglar,"
said Billy Getz. "Common sense would tell y