a joyful face. It fell as he glanced beyond his young
employer to the empty platform.

"No trunk!" he murmured in a low, disappointed tone.

"Too heavy to carry around, you see!" smiled Bart lightly. "Who is this
gentleman? Oh, I see--good afternoon, Mr. Stuart."

"Afternoon," crisply answered the stranger.

He was a young limb of the law, employed since the previous year in the
office of Judge Monroe, the principal attorney of Pleasantville.

Stuart was a butt for even the well-meaning boys of the town. He was
only nineteen, but he affected the dignity of a sage of sixty, seeming
to have the idea that nothing but a severe and forbidding manner could
represent the high and lofty calling he had condescended to follow.

"Ah," he observed, turning upon Bart and critically adjusting a single
eyeglass, "is this the express agent?"

"That's me," assented Bart bluntly.

"I represent Monroe, Purcell & Abernethy, Attorneys," grandly announced
Stuart. "We are employed by Mrs. Harrington to prosecute an inquiry as
to a missing trunk."

Darry looked very serious, Bart smiled serenely in the face of his
imperturbable visitor.

"What is there to prosecute, Mr. Stuart?" he inquired.

"We have come to demand certified copies of all entries and receipts of
this office covering the trunk in question," announced the young sprig
of the law.

"Well?" interrogated Bart.

"Your employee--assistant? here, declined to act without your
authority."

"Quite right. I give it, though. Darry, make out transcripts of the
records. That is all clear and regular."

Bart turned on his heel, ran his eye over the office books, and bored
young Mr. Stuart terribly by paying no further attention to him.

The latter stood watching the industrious Darry with owl-like solemnity.
Finally the latter handed a duplicate receipt and a copy of the entry to
Stuart.

"Will you officially attest to the correctness of these, Mr.--Ah, Mr.
Agent?" propounded Stuart.

"Sure," answered Bart with an off-handed alacrity that was distressing
to the responsibility burdened personality of the accredited
representative of Monroe, Purcell & Abernethy.

He dashed off an O.K. on the two documents, tendered them with
exaggerated courtesy to his visitor, who he was well aware knew his name
perfectly, and said, with the faintest suggestion of mimicry:

"Ah, Mr.--Representative, would you kindly inform me for what purpose
you want these transcripts?"

"They for