r too disheartened.

"Isn't that the limit!" the lad presently gathered indignation enough
to ejaculate.

"I expected something of the sort," was the reply. "We are up against
professionals, you see, and not amateurs. This gang is being paid big
money and does not intend either to fail in what it has undertaken or
be trapped. We had it too easy at the beginning and were too much
elated by our initial success."

"What are you going to do now?"

"I've wired New York for detectives. I ought to have followed my first
impulse and done it immediately, and I should have had we not seemed
on the high road to success without help. The plain-clothes men will
probably be miffed at being called in now that we have meddled with
the case and messed it all up."

"But I don't see how we have done any harm," retorted His Highness,
feeling it a little ungrateful of Mr. Crowninshield to veer so quickly
from commendation to censure.

"Oh, untrained people never can compete with skilled ones in any
line," was the sharp answer. "I ought to have remembered it. Doubtless
in our zeal we betrayed ourselves somehow and our man became
suspicious and adopted other tactics in consequence."

"I don't believe so," Walter maintained stoutly. "I'll bet this is
just what he had arranged to do anyway."

"Well, perhaps it was. We cannot tell about that," yawned the man at
the other end of the wire. "The result, however, is the same. Instead
of netting our catch we have allowed it to slip through our fingers."

There was an edge of exasperation in the tone.

"Maybe we'll have better luck than you think," ventured the lad, not
knowing what else to say, and unwilling to betray his chagrin.

"We'll have neither good luck nor bad in future," responded the master
curtly. "After this we keep our hands off and the detectives manage
the affair. There have been blunders enough."

With this ungracious comment the great man hung up the receiver and
stumbling through the darkness His Highness felt his way upstairs and
dropped into bed.

Like a house of cards his roseate dreams for the future had suddenly
collapsed. There would be now no wonderful career for Bob, no bag of
gold, no fairy fortune! Instead of being a hero he had again become a
mere duffer, a blunderer, had played the fool.

Since failure had come in place of the coveted success Mr.
Crowninshield would most likely blame it all to him.

Fleeting, indeed, was the favor and gratitude of pri