tep outside and get my pants on. I'll feel better."

"And you'll look better," said Mr. Dorgan. "You couldn't look worse."

"In the course of the deteckative career," said Mr. Gubb, "a gent has
to look a lot of different ways, and I thank you for the compliment.
The art of disguising the human physiology is difficult. This disguise
is but one of many I am frequently called upon to assume."

"Well, if any more are like this one," said Mr. Dorgan with sincerity,
"I'm glad I'm not a detective."

Syrilla, however, heaved her several hundred pounds of bosom and cast
her eyes toward Mr. Gubb.

"I think detectives are lovely in any disguise," she said, and Mr.
Gubb's heart beat wildly.

THE EAGLE'S CLAWS

As Philo Gubb boarded the train for Riverbank after recovering the
silver loving-cup from the interior of the petrified man, he cast a
regretful glance backward. It was for Syrilla. There was half a ton of
her pinky-white beauty, and her placid, cow-like expression touched an
echoing chord in Philo Gubb's heart.

Philo felt, however, that his admiration must be hopeless, for Syrilla
must earn a salary in keeping with her size, and his income was too
irregular and small to keep even a thin wife.

* * * * *

Five hundred dollars was a large reward for a loving-cup that cost not
over thirty dollars, it is true, but Mr. Jonas Medderbrook could
afford to pay what he chose, and as he was passionately fond of golf
and passionately poor at the game, and as this was probably the only
golf prize he would ever win, he was justified in paying liberally,
especially as this cup was not merely a tankard, but almost large
enough to be called a tank.

Detective Gubb hastened to the home of Mr. Medderbrook, but when the
door of that palatial house opened, the colored butler told Mr. Gubb
that Mr. Medderbrook was at the Golf Club, attending the annual
banquet of the Fifty Worst Duffers. Mr. Gubb started for the Golf
Club. As he walked he thought of Syrilla, and he was at the gate of
the Golf Club before he knew it.

He walked up the path toward the club-house, but when halfway, he
stopped short, all his detective instincts aroused. The windows of the
club-house glowed with light, and sounds of merriment issued from
them, but the cause of Philo Gubb's sudden pause was a head
silhouetted against one of the glowing windows. As Mr. Gubb watched,
he saw the head disappear in the gloom below the w