Hotel became in due course a client of Tutt & Tutt, and the
mouse which made Mr. Tutt famous did not die in vain, for the case
became celebrated throughout the length and breadth of the land, to the
glory of the firm and a vast improvement in the culinary conditions
existing in hotels.

"Come in, Mr. Barrows! Come right in! I haven't seen you for--well, how
long is it?" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, extending a long welcoming arm toward a
human scarecrow upon the threshold.

"Five years," answered the visitor. "I only got out day before
yesterday. Fourteen months off for good behavior."

He coughed and put down carefully beside him a large dress-suit case
marked E.V.B., Pottsville, N.Y.

"Well, well!" sighed Mr. Tutt. "So it is. How time flies!"

"Not in Sing Sing!" replied Mr. Barrows ruefully.

"I suppose not. Still, it must feel good to be out!"

Mr. Barrows made no reply but dusted off his felt hat. He was but the
shadow of a man, an old man at that, as was attested by his long gray
beard, his faded blue eyes, and the thin white hair about his fine
domelike forehead.

"I forget what your trouble was about," said Mr. Tutt gently. "Won't you
have a stogy?"

Mr. Barrows shook his head.

"I ain't used to it," he answered. "Makes me cough." He gazed about him
vaguely.

"Something about bonds, wasn't it?" asked Mr. Tutt.

"Yes," replied Mr. Barrows; "Great Lakes and Canadian Southern."

"Of course! Of course!"

"A wonderful property," murmured Mr. Barrows regretfully. "The bonds
were perfectly good. There was a defect in the foreclosure proceedings
which made them a permanent underlying security of the reorganized
company--under The Northern Pacific R.R. Co. vs. Boyd; you know--but the
court refused to hold that way. They never will hold the way you want,
will they?" He looked innocently at Mr. Tutt.

"No," agreed the latter with conviction, "they never will!"

"Now those bonds were as good as gold," went on the old man; "and yet
they said I had to go to prison. You know all about it. You were my
lawyer."

"Yes," assented Mr. Tutt, "I remember all about it now."

Indeed it had all come back to him with the vividness of a landscape
seen during a lightning flash--the crowded court, old Doc Barrows upon
the witness stand, charged with getting money on the strength of
defaulted and outlawed bonds--picked up heaven knows where--pathetically
trying to persuade an unsympathetic court that for some reason they
were