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“I hope you’ll pardon,” said Mr. Gubb politely, “but my name is P. Gubb, deteckative and paper-hanger, and I’m looking up a case. Might I trouble you for the loan of a spade or shovel?”

“What you want with it?” asked the man gruffly.

“To dig,” said Mr. Gubb.

The man reluctantly handed Mr. Gubb a spade on which there were still traces of soft, sandy soil. Mr. Gubb walked to the rear of the yard and jabbed the spade into the soft soil. It struck something hard. In a moment or two Mr. Gubb had the evidences of crime completely uncovered. There were bones buried there–many bones. Mr. Gubb looked up and wiped his brow. Then he looked down at the bones. One was a skull. Mr. Gubb stared at it. It was indeed a skull, but it was the skull of a calf. All the bones were calf bones–not bones of the human calf, but bones of the veal calf. Mr. Gubb turned his head and saw the long lanky man approaching.

“All right,” said the long, lanky man, “I give up. You’ve got me. I surrender. When a detective gets that close, a man hasn’t any chance. I own up. I did it.”

“You did what?”

“Now, quit!” said the long, lanky man. “No use rubbin’ it in after I’ve owned up. You know as well as I do–I’m the man that stole Farmer Hopper’s calf. I give up. I surrender.”

“I’m much obliged to you,” said Philo Gubb.

“Well, I ain’t obliged to you,”said the lanky man, “but I wish you’d tell me how you found out I was the calf thief.”

Mr. Gubb smiled an inscrutable smile.

“A deteckative acquires dexterity in the way of capturing up the criminal classes,” he said with oracular yet modest simplicity.

* * * * *

The next day, when Mr. Gubb returned to his paper-hanging job he found Chi Foxy waiting for him.

“Boss,” he said with a laugh, “I showed you where that murdered man’s bones was buried, won’t you stake me to a meal?”

“Are you hungry again?” asked Mr. Gubb.

“Hungry?” said Chi Foxy. “I’m so hungry that I feel like a living skeleton. I’m so hungry that a square meal would make me feel like Syrilla, that Fat Lady I seen at Derlingport a couple of days ago.”

“What’s that you remarked about?” asked Mr. Gubb, pinning Chi Foxy with his eye. “Did I understand the meaning of what you said was that you saw a Fat Lady named Syrilla?”

“At Derlingport,” said Chi Foxy. “A swell guy named Medderbrook give me a meal and a ticket to the big show. It was a performance de luxe, so to say. Special attraction, bo. You’d have laughed your head off. This here Syrilla Fat Lady got married to the Living Skeleton in the middle ring, and she had the Snake Charmer for a bridesmaid. Say! you’d have laughed–“

But Mr. Gubb did not laugh. He never laughed again.