"Oh, I'm just sent out by an agency."

"Is it a big paying proposition?" asked Charlie, eyeing the diffident
youth beside him critically, as if to judge his true caliber.

"Not very big. You see, if I'd been a better detective you'd never have
spotted me so quickly."

"I suppose money counts with you, though, as it does with everyone else
in the world?"

"Of course, sir. Every business is undertaken to make money."

Mershone drew his chair a little nearer.

"I need a clever detective myself," he announced, confidentially. "I'm
anxious to discover what enemy is persecuting me in this way. Would
it--er--be impossible for me to employ _you_ to--er--look after my
interests?"

Fogerty was very serious.

"You see, sir," he responded, "if I quit this job they may not give me
another. In order to be a successful detective one must keep in the good
graces of the agencies."

"That's easy enough," asserted Mershone. "You may pretend to keep this
job, but go home and take life easy. I'll send you a daily statement of
what I've been doing, and you can fix up a report to your superior from
that. In addition to this you can put in a few hours each day trying to