deal of attention."

"It is more probable that Miss Stubbs paid him a good deal of attention.
At present you are her favorite."

"I don't want to interfere with you, Mr. Blanchard," said Bert, much
amused.

"I can't undertake to compete with an actor, Mr. Barton."

"I can't get over my surprise at being called an actor. However, as long
as it pays me better than anything else, I don't object."

The next day Mrs. Stubbs intercepted Bert as he was leaving the house.

"My daughter tells me," she said, "that you are willing to pay four
dollars for the papers which Mr. Harding left behind him?"

"Yes," answered Bert eagerly.

"I don't see why I shouldn't sell them. I can't afford to lose eight
weeks' board."

"Quite true, Mrs. Stubbs. I don't see why they won't be just as safe in
my hands as in yours."

"You don't want to do Mr. Harding any harm; though I don't know why I
should think of that, after the way he has served me!"

"Instead of that, Mrs. Stubbs, I can assure you that it will be money in
his pocket, if, through his papers, I am able to find him."

"And in that case you will try to get him to pay his honest debts?"

"I will, Mrs. Stubbs."

"Then, Mr. Barton, if you will come up to the attic I will hand you the
papers."

Bert gladly followed Mrs. Stubbs upstairs, and was shown on the attic
floor a wooden box about half full of old letters and other papers. The
box certainly did not look very valuable, and Bert said so.

"I wouldn't have kept it," said the landlady, "if I could have got hold
of his trunk. But he got the start of me, and it was in the hands of an
expressman before I knew that he was going to move. I was downstairs in
the basement when Mr. Harding took the expressman upstairs, and the
trunk was brought down and put in his wagon before I knew what was going
on. Mr. Harding didn't even say good-by, and I haven't seen or heard of
him from that day to this."

"Well, Mrs. Stubbs, here are your four dollars, and I hope you will some
day get the balance of the debt."

Bert carried the box downstairs and into his room, where he proceeded to
examine the contents, among which he was destined to come across a
document of considerable interest to him.

CHAPTER XXX.

BERT OBTAINS AN IMPORTANT CLEW.

Mr. Harding was not a literary man, and his papers would hardly have
been of any value to a publisher. They consisted principally of letters,
some of them ten years old. It seemed to