The Pet

The Pet by Ellis Parker Butler.

On the morning following his capture of the hard-boiled egg, the Riverbank Eagle printed two

full columns in praise of Detective Gub and complemented Riverbank on having a superior

to Sherlock Holmes in its midst.

Mr. Philo Gub, said the Eagle, has thus far received only eleven of the twelve lessons

from the Rising Sun Detective Agency's correspondent school of detecting, and we look for great

things from him when he finally receives his diploma and badge.

He informed us today that he hopes to begin work on the dynamite case soon.

With the money he will receive for capturing the hard-boiled egg, Mr. Gub intends to purchase

eighteen complete disguises from the supply department of the Rising Sun Detective Agency,

Slocum Ohio.

Mr. Gub wishes us to announce that until the disguises arrive, he will continue to do paper-hanging,

decorating and interior painting at reasonable rates.

Unfortunately, there were no calls for Mr. Gub's detective services for some time after

he received his disguises and diploma.

But while waiting, he devoted his spare time to the dynamite mystery, a remarkable case

on which many detectives had been working for many weeks.

This led only to his being beaten up twice by Joseph Henry, one of the men he shadowed.

The arrival in Riverbank of the world's monster-combined shows that day after Mr. Gub received

his diploma seemed to offer an opportunity for his detective talents, as a circus is usually

accompanied by crooks.

And early in the morning, Mr. Gub donned disguise number sixteen, which was catalogued as

Negro Hack Driver, complete $22.

But while looking for crooks, while watching the circus unload, his eyes allighted on

Cyrilla, known as half a ton of beauty, the fat lady of the side show.

As Cyrilla descended from the car, aided by the living skeleton and the strong man, the

fair creature wore a low-neck evening gown.

Her arms and shoulders were snowy white, except for a peculiar mark on one arm.

Not only had Mr. Gub never seen such white arms and shoulders, but he had never seen so

much arm and shoulder on one woman.

And from that moment he was deeply and hopelessly in love.

Like one hypnotized, he followed her to the side show tent, paid his admission and stood

all day before her platform.

He was still there when the tent was taken down that night.

Mr. Gub was not the only man in Riverbank to fall in love with Cyrilla.

In the ladies of the Riverbank Social Service League heard that the circus was coming to town

they were distressed to think how narrow the intellectual life of the side show freaks

must be.

And they instructed their field secretary, Mr. Horace Winterberry, to go to the side show

and organize the freaks into an Ibson literary and debating society.

This Mr. Winterberry did and the Tasmanian wildman was made president.

But so deeply did Mr. Winterberry fall in love with Cyrilla that he begged Mr. Dorgon,

the manager of the side show to let him join the side show.

And this Mr. Dorgon did, putting him in a cage as wall wall, the Mexican hairless dogman,

as Mr. Winterberry was exceedingly bald.

At the very next stop made by the circus a strong heavy fisted woman entered the side

show and dragged Mr. Winterberry away.

This was his wife.

Of this the ladies of the Riverbank Social Service League knew nothing.

However, they believed Mr. Winterberry had been stolen by the circus and that he was

doubtless being forced to learn to swing on a trapeze or ride a bear back horse.

And they decided to hire Detective Gub to find and return him.

At the very moment when the ladies were deciding to retain Mr. Gub's services the paper hanger

detective was on his way to do a job of paper-hanging.

Thinking of the fair Cyrilla he might never see again.

And suddenly he put down the pail of paste he was carrying and grasped the handle of

his pastebrush more firmly.

He stared with amazement and fright at a remarkable creature that came toward him from

a small thicket near the railway tracks.

Mr. Gub's first and correct impression was that this was some remarkable creature escaped

from the circus.

The hard thing looping toward him was indeed the Tasmanian Wildman.

As the Wildman approached, Philo Gub prepared to defend himself.

He was prepared to defend himself to his last drop of blood.

When halfway across the field the Tasmanian Wildman glanced back over his shoulder and

as if fearing pursuit increased his speed and came toward Philo Gub in great leaps and

bounds.

The correspondent school detective waved his pastebrush more frantically than ever.

The Tasmanian Wildman stopped short within six feet of him.

Viewed thus closely the Wildman was a sight to curdle the blood.

At remnants of chains hung from his wrists and ankles his long hair was matted about

his face and his fingernails were long and claw-like.

His face was dogged with ochre and red with black rings around the eyes and the circles

within the rings were painted white, giving him an air of wildness possessed by but few

wildman.

His only garments were a pair of very short trunks and the skin of some wild animal bound

about his body with ropes of horse hair.

Philo Gub bent to receive the leap he felt the Tasmanian Wildman was about to make but

to his surprise the Wildman held up one hand in token of amity and with the other removed

the matted hair from his head, revealing an undercrop of taffy yellow, neatly parted in

the middle and smoothed back carefully.

I sailed, chap, he said in a pleasant and well-bred tone.

Stop waving that dangerous looking weapon at me, will you?

My intentions are most kindly, I assure you.

Can you inform me where a chap can get a pair of trousers here about?

Philo Gub's experience I saw it once that this creature was less wild than he was painted.

He lowered his pastebrush.

Come into this house said Philo Gub inside the house we can discuss pants and calmness.

The Tasmanian Wildman accepted.

Now then said Philo Gub when they were safe in the kitchen.

He seated himself on a roll of wallpaper and a Tasmanian Wildman whose real name was

Waldo Emerson Snooks, told his brief story.

Upon graduating from Harvard he had sought employment offering to furnish entertainment

by the evening, reading an essay entitled The Comparative Mentality of Ibsen and Emerson

with sidelights on the effect of turnip diet at Brook Farm.

But the agency was unable to get him any engagements.

They happened, however, to receive a request from Mr. Dorgon, manager of the side show,

looking for a Tasmanian Wildman and Mr. Snooks had taken the job.

To his own surprise he made an excellent Wildman.

He was able to rattle his chains, dash up and down the cage, gnaw the iron bars of the

cage eat raw meat and howl as no other Tasmanian Wildman had ever done those things.

And all would have been well if an interloper had not entered the side show.

The interloper was Mr. Winterberry, who had introduced the subject of Ibsen's plays,

and in a discussion of them the Tasmanian Wildman and Mr. Hoxy, the strong man, had quarreled,

and Mr. Hoxy had threatened to tear Mr. Snooks limb from limb.

And he would have done so, said the Tasmanian Wildman with emotion, if I had not fled.

I dare not return.

I mean to work my way back to Boston and give up Tasmanian Wildmaning as a profession,

but I cannot without pants.

I guess you can't, said Philo-Gub.

In any station of Boston's life pants is expected to be worn.

So the question is old chap, where am I to be panted, said Waldo Emerson Snooks.

I can't pant you, said Philo-Gub, but I can overall you.

The late Tasmanian Wildman was most grateful.

When he was dressed in the overalls and had wiped the grease paint from his face on an

old rag, no one would have recognized him.

And as for thanks, said Philo-Gub, don't mention it.

A detecative gent is obliged to keep up a set of disguises hitherto unsuspected by the

mortal world.

This Tasmanian Wildman outfit will do for a hermit disguise, so you don't owe me no thanks.

As Philo-Gub watched Waldo Emerson Snooks start in the direction of Boston, only some

1,300 miles away, he had no idea how soon he would have occasion to use the Tasmanian

Wildman disguise.

But hardly had the Wildman departed, then a small boy came to summon Mr. Gub.

And it was with a sense of elation and importance that he appeared before the meeting of the

Riverbank ladies' social service league.

And so, said Mrs. Garthwaite at the close of the interview.

You understand us, Mr. Gub?

Yes, ma'am, said Philo-Gub.

What you want me to do is find Mr. Winterberry, ain't it?

Exactly.

Agreed, Mrs. Garthwaite.

And when found, said Mr. Gub, the said stolen goods is to be returned to you.

Just so.

And the fiends in human form that stole him are to be given the full limit of the law.

They certainly deserve it abducting a nice little gentleman like Mr. Winterberry, said

Mrs. Garthwaite.

They do indeed, said Philo-Gub, and they shall be.

I would only ask how far you want me to arrest.

If the manager of the side-show stole him, my natural and professional detective instincts

would tell me to arrest the manager.

And if the whole side-show stole him, I would make bold to arrest the whole side-show.

But if the whole circus stole him, am I to arrest the whole circus?

And if so, what I to include the menagerie?

What I to arrest the elephants and the camels?

Just only those in human form, said Mrs. Garthwaite.

Philo-Gub sat straight and put his hands on his knees.

In referring to human form, ma'am, he asked, do you include them orangutans and apes?

I do, said Mrs. Garthwaite.

Association with criminals has probably inclined their poor minds to criminality.

Yes, ma'am, said Philo-Gub, rising.

I leave on this case by the first train.

Mr. Gub hastily packed the Tasmanian garment and six other disguises in a suitcase.

Put the $14 given him by Mrs. Garthwaite in his pocket, and hurried to catch the train

for Bardville, where the world's monster-combined shows were to show the next day.

With true detective caution, Philo-Gub disguised even this simple act.

Having packed his suitcase, Mr. Gub racked it carefully in Manila paper and inserted

a laundry ticket under the twine.

Thus, anyone seeing him might well suppose he was returning from the laundry and not going

to Bardville.

To make this seem the more likely he dawned his Chinese disguise, number seventeen, consisting

of a pink skull-like wig with a long pigtail, a blue jumper, and a yellow complexion.

Mr. Gub rubbed his face with crude ochre powder, and his complexion was a little high, being

more the hue of a pumpkin than the true oriental skin tint.

As he met on his way to the station, he imagined he was in the last stages of yellow fever

and fled from him hastily.

He reached the station just as the train's wheels began to move, and he was springing

up the steps onto the platform of the last car when a hand grasped his arm.

He turned his head and saw that the man grasping him was Jonas Metterbrook, one of Riverbank's

wealthiest man.

Gub, I want you!

Shouted Metterbrook energetically, but Philo Gub shook off the detaining arm.

Mino Savi Melek and Taki, he jabbered, bunting Mr. Metterbrook off the car step.

Brighton early the next morning, Philo Gub gave himself a healthy coat of tan, with rather

high color on his cheekbones.

From his collection of beards and mustaches, carefully tagged from number one to number

eighteen, in harmony with the types of disguises mentioned in the twelve lessons of the rising

sun detective agency's correspondence school of detacting, he selected mustache number

eight, and inserted the spring wires into his nostrils.

Mustache number eight was a long, deadly black mustache, with up-curled ends, and when

Philo Gub had daunted he had a most sinister appearance, particularly as he failed to remove

the string tag, which bore the legend number eight, gambler, or card-sharp, manufactured

and sold by the rising sun detective agency's correspondence school of detecting supply

bureau.

Having put on this mustache, Mr. Gub took a common splint market basket from under the

bed and placed it in the matted hair of the Tasmanian Wildman.

His makeup materials, a small mirror, two towels, a cake of soap, the Tasmanian Wildman's

animal skin robe, the hair robe and the abbreviated trunks.

He covered these with a newspaper.

The sun was just rising when he reached the railway siding, and hardly had Mr. Gub

arrived when the work of unloading the circus began.

Mr. Gub, searching for the abducted Mr. Winterberry, sped rapidly from place to place,

the string tag on his mustache napping over his shoulder, but he saw no one answering

Mrs. Garthwaite's description of Mr. Winterberry.

In the tent wagons and departed, the elephants and camels were unloaded, but Mr. Winterberry

did not seem to be concealed among them, and the animal cages which came next were all

tightly closed.

There were four or five cars, however, that attracted Philo Gub's attention, and one

in particular made his heart beat rapidly.

This car bore the words, world's monster combined shows freak car.

And as Mr. Winterberry had gone as a social reform agent to the side show, Mr. Gub rightly

felt that here if anywhere he would find a clue, and he was doubly agitated since he

knew the beautiful Cyrilla was doubtless in that car.

Walking around the car he heard the door at one end open.

He crouched under the platform his ears and eyes on edge, hardly was he concealed before

the head ruffian of the unloading gang approached.

Mr. Dorgon, he said, in quite another tone then he had used to his labors.

Should I fetch that wild man cage to the grounds for you today?

No, said Dorgon, what's the use?

I don't like an empty cage standing around, leave it on the car Jake, or hold on, I'll

use it, take it up to the grounds, and put it in the side show as usual, I'll put the

pet in it.

Are you fooling?

Ask the loading boss with a grin.

The cage won't know itself, Mr. Dorgon, after holding that rip snorten wild man to be

holding a cold corpse like the pet is.

Never you mind said Dorgon shortly, I know my business Jake, you and I know the pet

is a dead one, but these country yaps don't know it, I might as well make some use of

the remains as long as I've got him on hand.

Who are you going to fool, sweetie?

Ask the voice and Mr. Dorgon looked around to see Cyrilla, the fat lady standing in

the car door.

Oh, just folks, said Dorgon laughing.

You're going to use the pet, said the fat lady reproachfully, and I don't think it's

nice of you.

Say what you will, Mr. Dorgon, a corpse is a corpse and a respectable side show ain't

no place for it.

I wish you would take it out and the lot and bury it like I wanted you to, or throw it

in the river and get rid of it, won't you, dearie?

I will not, said Mr. Dorgon firmly, a corpse may be a corpse, Cyrilla, any place but

in the circus.

But in a circus, it's a feature.

He's going to be one of the seven sleepers.

One of what?

Asked Cyrilla.

One of the seven sleepers, said Dorgon.

I'm going to put him in the cage, the wild man was in and I'm going to tell the audience

he's asleep.

He looks dead, I'll say, but I give my word, he's only asleep.

We offer five thousand dollars, I'll say, to any man, woman or child that proves contrary

than that we have documents proven that this human being and this cage fell asleep

in the year 1837 and has been sleeping ever since.

The longest nap on record I'll say, that'll fetch a laugh.

And you don't care, dearie, that I'll be creepy all through the show, do you, said Cyrilla.

I won't care a hang, said Dorgon.

Mr. Gub glided noiselessly from under the car and sped away.

He had heard enough to know that devil tree was a foot.

There was no doubt in his mind that the pet was the late Mr. Winterberry for if ever

a man deserved to be called pet.

Mr. Winterberry, according to Mrs. Garthwaite's description, was that man.

There was no doubt that Mr. Winterberry had been murdered and that these heartless wretches

meant to make capital of his body.

The inference was logical, it was a strong clue, and Mr. Gub hurried to the circus grounds

to study the situation.

No, said Cyrilla, tearfully.

You don't care a hang for the nerves of the lady and gent freaks under your care, Mr.

Dorgon.

It's nothing to you if repulsion from that corpse-like pet drags seventy or eighty pounds

of fat off of me, for you well know what my contract is.

So much a week and so much for each additional pound of fat, and the less fat I am, the less

you have to add onto your payroll.

The day the pet come to the show first, I fainted outright and busted down the platform.

But little do you care, Mr. Dorgon.

Don't you worry, you didn't murder him, said Mr. Dorgon.

He looks so lifelike, soft Cyrilla.

O'Hawksy shouted Mr. Dorgon, yes sir, said the strong man coming to the car door.

Take Cyrilla in and tell the girls to put ice on her head, she's getting hysterics

again, and when you've told him go up to the grounds and tell Blake and skinny to unpack

the petrified man.

Tell him I'm going to use him again today, and if he's looking shop-borne, have one

of the men go over his complexion and make him look nice and lifelike.

Mr. Dorgon swung off from the car-step and walked away.

The petrified man had been one of his mistakes.

In days past, petrified man had been important side-show features, and Mr. Dorgon had supposed

the time had come to reintroduce them, and he had had an excellent petrified man made

of concrete with steel reinforcements in the legs and arms and a body of hollow tile

so that it could stand rough travel.

Unfortunately the features of the petrified man had been entrusted to an artist devoted

to the making of clothing dummies.

Instead of an Aztec or cave dweller cast into the countenance, he had given the petrified

man the simpering features of the wax figures seen in cheap clothing stores.

The result was that instead of gazing at the petrified man with awe as a wonder of nature,

the audience is laughed at him, and the living freaks dubbed him the pet, or still more

rudely, the corpse.

And when the glass case broke, at the end of the week Mr. Dorgon ordered the pet packed

in a box.

Just now, however, the flight of the Tasmanian Wildman, and the involuntary departure

of Mr. Winterberry at the command of his wife after his short appearance as Wawa the Mexican

hairless dogman, suggested the new use for the petrified man.

When Detective Gub reached the circus grounds, the glaring banners had not yet been erected

before the sideshow tent, but all the tents except the big top were up, and all hands were

at work on that one, or supposed to be.

Two were not.

Two of the roughest-looking roustabouts after glancing here and there glided into the

property tent and concealed themselves behind a pile of blue cases, hampers, and canvas

bags.

One of them immediately drew fond of his coat a small but heavy parcel wrapped in an old

rag.

Say, Carl, he said in a coarse voice, you sure have got a head on you.

This here stuff will be just as safe in there as in the bank.

See?

Give me the screwdriver.

Not to be opened until Chicago said the other, clefily pointing to the words dobbed on

one of the blue cases.

But I guess it will be, hailed pal, I guess so.

Together they removed the lid of the box and Detective Gub, seeking the sideshow, crawled

under the wall of the property tent just in time to see that two ruffians herodly jammed

their parcel into the case and screw the lid in place again.

Mr. Gub's mustache was now in a diagonal position, but little he cared for that.

His eyes were fastened on the countenance of the two roustabouts.

The men were easy to remember.

One was red-headed and pockmarked, and the other was dark, and the lobes of his ears were

slit as if someone had at some time forcibly removed a pair of rings from them.

Very quietly filo-gub wiggled backwards out of the tent, but as he did so his eyes caught

a word painted on the side of the blue case.

It was pet.

Mr. Gub proceeded to the next tent, stooping he peered inside and what he saw satisfied

him that he had found the sideshow.

Around the inside of the tent men were erecting a blue platform, and on the far side four

men were wheeling a tungless cage into place.

A door at the backside of the cage swung open and shut as the men moved the cage, but

another in front was securely bolted and barred.

Mr. Gub lowered the tent wall and backed away.

It was into this cage that the body of Mr. Winterberry was to be put to make a public

holiday for Yocles, and the murderer was still at large.

Murderer?

Murdererers.

However, who were the two rough characters he had seen tampering with the case containing

the remains of the pet?

What had they been putting in the case?

If not the murderers they were surely accomplices.

Walking like a wary flamingo Mr. Gub circled the tent.

He saw Mr. Dorgon and Cyrilla enter it.

Himself hidden in a clump of bushes.

He saw Mr. Lonergan the living skeleton.

Mr. Hoxie the strong man made your ching the Chinese giant general thumb the dwarf princess

Zozo the serpent-charmer Maggie the Sir Cassian girl and the rest of the side show employees

enter the tent.

Then he removed his number eight mustache and put it in his pocket and balanced his mirror

against a twig.

Mr. Gub was changing his disguise.

For a while the lady and gentleman freak stood talking, casting reproachful glances at Mr.

Dorgon.

Cyrilla with traces of tears on her face was complaining of the cruel man who insisted

that the pet become part of the show once more and Mr. Dorgon was resisting their reproaches.

I'm the boss of the show he said firmly I'm going to use that cage and I'm going to

use that pet.

Couldn't you put Orlando in it and get up a spiel about him?

Asked Princess Zozo, whose largest serpent was called Orlando.

If you got him a bottle of cold cream from the makeup tent he'd lie for hours with his

dear little nose sniffing it.

He's passionately fond of cold cream.

Well, the public ain't passionately fond of seeing a snake smell it, said Mr. Dorgon.

The pet is going into that cage, see.

Couldn't you borrow an ape from the menagerie?

Asked Mr. Lonerton, the living skeleton who was as passionately fond of Cyrilla as Orlando

was of cold cream.

And haven't been the first man monkey to speak the human language.

Only he's got a cold and can't talk today.

He did that once.

And got roasted by the whole crowd.

No serve, Mr. Lonerton.

I can't and I won't.

Bring that case right over here he added, turning to the four roused abouts who were carrying

the blue case into the tent.

Got it open?

Good.

Now.

He looked toward the cage and stopped short.

His mouth opened and his eyes staring.

Sitting on his haunches, his forepaws, or hands hanging down like those of a becky dog,

the Tasmanian wild man stared from between the bars of the cage.

The matted hair, the bare legs, the animal skin blanket, the streaks of ochre and red on

the face, the black circles around the eyes with the white inside the circles were those

of a real Tasmanian wild man.

But this Tasmanian wild man was tall and thin, almost rivaling Mr. Lonerton in that respect.

The thin Roman nose and the blinky eyes together with the manner of holding the head on one

side suggested a bird, a large and dissipated flamingo, for instance.

Mr. Durgan stared with his mouth open.

He stared so steadily that he even took a telegram from the messenger boy who entered

the tent and signed for it without looking at the address.

The messenger boy, too, stopped to stare at the Tasmanian flamingo.

The man who had brought the blue case, set it down and stared.

The freaks gathered in front of the cage and stared.

What is it?

Asked Cyrilla in a voice trembling with emotion.

Say, where in the USA did you come from?

Ask Mr. Durgan suddenly.

What in the Dickens are you anyway?

I'm a Tasmanian wild man, said Mr. Gubb mildly.

You, a Tasmanian wild man, said Mr. Durgan.

You don't think you look like a Tasmanian wild man, do you?

Why, you look like you look like you, you look.

He looks like an intoxicated pterodactyl, said Mr. Lonergan who had some knowledge of

prehistoric animals, only hairier.

He looks like a human turkey with a pie-balled face, suggested general thumb.

He don't look like nothing said Mr. Durgan at last.

That's what he looks like.

You get out of that cage.

He added sternly to Mr. Gubb.

I don't want nothing that looks like you nowhere near this show.

Mr. Durgan, dearie, think how he'd draw crowds, said Cyrilla.

Crowds?

Of course he'd draw crowds, said Mr. Durgan, but what would I say when I've lectured

about him?

What would I call him?

No.

He's got to go, boys.

He said to the four rastabouts, two of whom were those Mr. Gubb had seen in the property

tent, throw this feller out of the tent.

Stop, said Mr. Gubb, raising one hand.

I will admit I have tried to deceive you.

I am not a Tasmanian wild man.

I am a detective.

Detective?

said Mr. Durgan.

In disguise, said Mr. Gubb modestly.

In the detective profession, the assuming of disguises is often necessary to the completion

of the clarification of a mystery plot.

He pointed down at the pet, whose newly raged and powdered face rested smirkingly in

the box below the cage.

I arrest you all, he said, but before he could complete the sentence, the red-headed man

and the black-headed man turned and bolted from the tent.

Mr. Gubb beat and jerked at the bars of his cages frantically as Mr. Waldo Emerson snooks

had ever beaten and jerked, but he could not rent them apart.

Get those two fellers, Mr. Gubb shouted to Mr. Hoxy, and the strong man ran from the

tent.

What's this about a rest, as to Mr. Durgan?

I arrest this whole side-show, said Mr. Gubb, pressing his face between the bars of the

cage.

For the murder of that poor, gentle, harmless man, now a dead corpse into that blue box there.

Mr. Winterberry by name, but called by you by the alias of the pet.

Winterberry exclaimed Mr. Durgan.

That Winterberry, that ain't Winterberry, that's a stone man, a made-to-order concrete man

with hollow tile stomach and reinforced concrete arms and legs.

I had him made-to-order.

The criminal mind is well equipped with explanations for use in time of stress, said Mr. Gubb.

Lesson six of the correspondent's school of detecating warns the detective against explanations

of murderers when confronted by the victim.

I demand an autopsy onto Mr. Winterberry.

Autopsy exclaimed Mr. Durgan, a law-topsie him for you.

He grasped one of the pet's hands and wrenched off one concrete arm.

He struck the head with a tent-stake and shattered it into a crumbling concrete.

He jerked the Roman tunic from the body and disclosed the hollow tile stomach.

Hello, he said, lifting a rag-rapped parcel from the interior of the pet.

What's this?

When unwrapped, it proved to be two dozen silver forks and spoons and a good-sized silver

trophy cup.

For Bank Country Club Duffer's golf trophy, 1909, Mr. Durgan read, one by Jonas Metter-Brook.

How did that get there?

Jonas Metter-Brook said Gubb is a man of my own local town.

He is, is he, said Mr. Durgan.

And what's your name?

Gubb said the detective, Philo Gubb, as choir, detective and paper hanger, Riverbank, Iowa.

And this is for you, said Mr. Durgan, and he handed the telegram to Mr. Gubb.

The detective opened it and read, Gubb, care of circus, Bardville, Iowa.

My house robbed circus night, golf cup gone, game now rotten, never win another.

$500 reward for return to me, Jonas Metter-Brook.

You didn't actually come here to find Mr. Winterberry DQ, asked Cyrilla.

Mr. Gubb folded the telegram, raised his matted hair, and tucked the telegram between

it and his own hair for a safekeeping.

When a detective starts out to detect, he said calmly.

Sometimes he detects one thing, and sometimes he detects another.

That cup is one of the things I detected today.

And now, if all are willing, I'll step outside and get my pants on.

I'll feel better.

And you'll look better, said Mr. Durgan, you couldn't look worse.

In the course of the detective career, said Mr. Gubb, a gent has to look a lot of different

ways, and I thank you for the compliment.

The art of disguising the human physiology is difficult.

This disguise is but one of many.

I am frequently called upon to assume.

Well, if any more like this one said Mr. Durgan with sincerity, I'm glad I'm not a detective.

Arilla, however, heaved her several hundred pounds of bosom and cast her eyes toward Mr.

Gubb.

I think detectives are lovely in any disguise, she said, and Mr. Gubb's heart beat wildly.

And of, the pet, by Ellis Parker Butler.