trial
what I warrant it took you several trials to determine."

He could not help but laugh. "And why do you think it took me several
trials?"

"Because there is more than one thing in that room made up of parts."

"Parts?" He attempted to look puzzled, but I would not have it.

"You know what I mean," I declared; "seventy parts, twenty-eight, or
whatever the numbers are she so constantly mutters."

His admiration was unqualified and sincere.

"Miss Butterworth," said he, "you are a woman after my own heart. How
came you to think that her mutterings had anything to do with a
hiding-place?"

"Because it did not have anything to do with the amount of money I gave
her. When I handed her twenty-five cents, she cried, 'Seventy,
twenty-eight, and now ten!' Ten what? Not ten cents or ten dollars, but
ten----"

"Why do you stop?"

"I do not want to risk my reputation on a guess. There is a quilt on the
bed made up of innumerable pieces. There is a floor of neatly laid
brick----"

"And there is a Bible on the stand whose leaves number many over
seventy."

"Ah, it was in the Bible you found----"

His smile put mine quite to shame.

"I must acknowledge," he cried, "that I looked in the Bible, but I found
nothing there beyond what we all seek when we open its sacred covers.
Shall I tell my story?"

He was evidently bursting with pride. You would think that after a
half-century of just such successes, a man would take his honors more
quietly. But pshaw! Human nature is just the same in the old as in the
young. He was no more tired of compliment or of awakening the
astonishment of those he confided in, than when he aroused the
admiration of the force by his triumphant handling of the Leavenworth
Case. Of course in presence of such weakness I could do nothing less
than give him a sympathetic ear. I may be old myself some day. Besides,
his story was likely to prove more or less interesting.

"Tell your story?" I repeated. "Don't you see that I am"--I was going to
say "on pins and needles till I hear it," but the expression is too
vulgar for a woman of my breeding; so I altered the words, happily
before they were spoken, into "that I am in a state of the liveliest
curiosity concerning the whole matter? Tell your story, of course."

"Well, Miss Butterworth, if I do, it is because I know you will
appreciate it. You, like myself, placed weight upon the numbers she is
forever running over, and you, like myself, have co