through."

"Most certainly," said P. Gubb. "And so am I. But there's a difference
into the way you are doing it now. You ain't deteckating now. You are
coming at me as one deteckative unto another."

Chi Foxy laughed.

"Say," he said, "I'd like to see this here Correspondence School you
graduated out of, I would. I'd like to see the lessons they learn you,
I would. Why, the first thing my old pard Shermlock Hollums told me
was _never_ to be anything but what I was disguised to be as long as I
was disguised to be it. That's right. Maybe I'd be disguised as a
tramp and I'd meet our old friend and college chum, the Dook of Sluff.
He'd want to take me into some swell place and blow me off to a swell
dinner. Would I let on? No, sir! I'd sort of whine at him and say,
'Mister, won't you give a poor feller a penny for to hire a bed?'
That's how me and Shermlock stuck to a disguise. And Shermlock! Me and
him was like twins, we was, and yet when I was in this tramp disguise
and went up to his room to report, I'd knock at the door and say,
'Mister, give a poor cove a hand-out, won't you?' and Shermlock would
turn and say, 'Watson, throw this tramp downstairs.' And Watson would
do it. Yes, sir! I've been so sore and bruised from being thrown
downstairs when I went to report to Shermlock that sometimes I'd have
to go to the hospital to get plastered up. That's detecting!"

Chi Foxy looked at P. Gubb, but P. Gubb did not seem to have melted.

"That's livin' up to your disguise," continued Chi Foxy. "Me and
Shermlock, when we had on tramp disguises we _were_ tramps. Why, I
used to go home and my valet would throw me downstairs. I was so
thoroughly disguised, and I kept actin' so trampish while I had the
disguise on, that he used to come at me with a golluf stick and whack
me on the head. And when I got into my own room I kept right on being
a tramp. Took off my clothes--still a tramp. Took off my false
whiskers--still a tramp. I'd be there stark naked and I'd still be a
tramp. Yes, sir. That's the kind of detective disguising I did. And
then I'd take a bath. Then I was myself again. Yes, sir. When I'd
scrubbed myself in the bathtub I figured I'd got rid of the tramp
disguise right down into the skin, and I'd be myself again--and not
until then."

He looked at P. Gubb out of the corner of his eye.

"Why, I remember one time," he said briskly, "I was asked to the
Dook's palace to a swell party. Me and Shermlock was both asked,