because they knew one of us wouldn't go unless the other did. Well,
sir, I had been out detecting in a tramp disguise that day--findin'
stolen jools and murderers and that sort of business--and I went and
took my bath and rigged all up in swell clothes, and called my
limmy-seen automobile, and when the feller I hired to drive the
limmy-seen come to open the door of the car at the Dook's palace I
dodged. Yes, sir, I dodged like I thought he was going to hit me
because I hadn't no business in my own limmy-seen automobile. That was
funny, wasn't it? So I went up the steps into the Dook's palace, and
the gentleman he had to open the door opened the door, and he called
out my name and up come the Dookess--Mrs. Dook of Sluff, as they call
her, but I always called her Maggie, like she called me Mike. So she
says to me, 'Mike, I'm mighty glad to see you here. We're going to have
a swell party.' And I started to say back something pleasant, but what
I said was, 'Please, missus, won't you give a poor cove a hand-out?'"

"What seemed to be the reason you said that?" asked Philo Gubb with
interest.

"That's what worried me," said Chi Foxy. "I didn't mean to say it. I
just said it against my will, as you might say. But I guess she
thought I was tryin' to be smart, for she just says, 'Naughty,
naughty, Mike,' and whistled to the Dook to come and blow me off to
the feeds. So the Dook come and led me into the dining-room, and
stacked me up against the table for a stand-up feed. Swell feed, bo!
Samwiches till you couldn't rest--ham samwiches and chicken samwiches
and tongue samwiches and club samwiches and--and all kinds of
samwiches. And what did I do? I grabbed half a dozen of them samwiches
and rammed them into my pants pocket, just like a tramp would do it.
The Dook looked surprised, but he begun to haw-haw, and he slapped me
on the back and said, 'Good joke, ol' chap, good joke!' So that passed
off all right. Then I went into the jool room, because the Dook had
told me his son, the Dookette, or what you might call the little
Dookerino, was in there. So in I went, and the first thing I knew I
was hiding one of the Dook's gold crowns inside my vest. In a minute
in come the Dook to pick out a crown to wear at dinner--"

"I thought you said they had a stand-up dinner at the table," said
Philo Gubb.

"Pshaw, that was nothing but the appetizer," said Chi Foxy. "Well, in
he come and began lookin' through his crowns for the one he wan