l you, over the wire, all that I want to see you about,"
Driggs replied. "You'd better come over here at once. I can
promise you that it's something interesting."

"I---I don't believe I can come over to-day," Fred answered hesitatingly.
"The weather is too hot."

"Mebbe the weather will get hotter, if you don't come," Hiram
Driggs responded calmly.

"That's a joke, eh?" queried Fred. "Ha, ha, ha!"

"Depends upon the feller's sense of humor," Driggs declared.
"Well, you're coming over, aren't you?"

"Ye-es, I'll come," Fred assented falteringly, for his guilty
conscience made a coward of him. "You're a fine fellow, Mr. Driggs,
and I'm glad to oblige anyone like you. I'll be right over."

"Thanks, ever so much, for the compliment," drawled Driggs in
his most genial tone. "Such a compliment is especially appreciated
when it comes from a young gentleman of your stripe. Good-bye."

That word "stripe" caused Fred Ripley to have a disagreeable chill.
He remembered that "stripes" are an important part of the design
on a convict's suit of state-furnished clothes.

"But he needn't think he can prove anything against me," Fred
muttered to himself, as he started down the street. "Of course,
I know I lost that chisel last night, and Driggs may have found
it in his boatyard. But he can't prove that the chisel belongs
to me, or to our house. There are lots more chisels just like
that one. If Driggs tries to bluff me he'll find that I'm altogether
too cool for him!"

Nevertheless, it was an anxious young man who walked into the
boat builder's office a few minutes later. Hiram Driggs, smiling
broadly, held out his hand, which Fred took.

"Sorry I wasn't here when you called last night," said Driggs
affably.

"I don't know what you mean," Fred rejoined promptly. "I didn't
call at your house last night."

"Oh, no," Driggs replied. "I meant when you called here."

"I didn't call here, either."

"Ever see this before?" asked Driggs, holding up the chisel.

"Never," lied Fred.

"That's curious," said Driggs musingly. "Officer Curtis, the
man on this beat, found the chisel here, and it was wrapped up
in part of this newspaper."

Driggs brought forth from one of the drawers of his desk the newspaper
in question.

"What has that scrap of paper to do with it?" asked Fred, speaking
as coolly as he could.

"Why," explained Driggs, turning the paper over, "here's the mail
sticker on this side, with your fa