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“We’re in the Runyon Rufe catching business,” says Mr. Phelps, very genial, “and we trust you will not oppose the officers of the law in the exercise of their functions.”

“I don’t want to oppose anybody when it’s four to one,” says I, equally genial, “though may I make so bold as to inquire who is Runyon Rufe and what’s he done?”

“Never heard of Runyon Rufe!” says Nettleship, like it was George Washington or Alfred the Great.

“Here it is, better than I can tell it,” said Mr. Phelps, handing me a printed proclamation:

TEN THOUSAND POUNDS REWARD.

RUNYON RUFE, Banker and Company Promoter, wanted for gigantic frauds in connection with the Invincible Building Society, the Greater London Finance Syndicate, Suburbs Limited, and other undertakings. Fled to the United States, where he had previously put by sums aggregating two hundred thousand pounds; resisted extradition; forfeited his bail; was traced to Portland, Oregon, and thence to Penrhyn Island, South Pacific, where all clews as to his whereabouts were lost.

Aged sixty-three; height, five feet nine inches; imposing appearance; weight, fifteen stone and over; fair complexion; brown eyes, with bushy, gray eyebrows; scanty gray hair; of a plethoric habit, and with a noticeable hesitancy of speech. When last seen was well supplied with money, and was heard declaring his intention of making his way toward the lesser-traveled islands of the Pacific Ocean.

The above reward, in whole or in part, will be paid by Houghton & Cust, No. 318 George Street, Sydney, New South Wales, on receiving information that will lead to the arrest of the said Runyon Rufe.

Traders and others are cautioned against harboring the fugitive, or aiding and abetting his escape from the officers of justice.

I read it three times and then handed it back.

“Show me where to sign,” says I.

“We have to go through the disagreeable formality of searching these premises,” said Mr. Phelps, disregarding my joke, “and if you have no objections we shall begin now!”

“And suppose I did have an objection?” I asked.

“We’d search them just the same,” said Mr. Phelps, grinning.

I was in two minds what to do; but I noticed the bookkeeper’s lip was cut, and there was dried blood on Mr. Nettleship’s knuckles, and it didn’t seem good enough. I saw they had begun on Tom first, and that decided me to take water with my formality.

“Walk in,” says I.

They didn’t wait for a second asking, and a minute later were poking and rummaging all through the place. They thought I might have hid him somewheres, and turned over everything to that end, not opening as much as a chest or pulling out a single drawer. It wasn’t much pleasure to look on and see them doing it, but I had to take my medicine, and it was common sense to appear cheerful about it. They crawled into all kinds of places, and backed out of all kinds of others, and tapped the walls to see if any was hollow, and turned over sacks of pearl shell and copra, and sneezed and swore and burrowed and choked, till at last Mr. Phelps really found something, and that was a centipede that bit him. This brought them all out on the front veranda again, where I had to pretend I was sorry, which I was–for the centipede.

I asked what they were going to do next, and they said, “Get aboard and bathe it with ammoniar”; and I said, “No, I meant about Runyon Rufe”; and Mr. Phelps he give me a wicked look, and said that they’d lay him by the legs before long, together with a few white trading gentlemen, maybe, to keep him company; and I said, “Oh, dear, I hope that isn’t any insinuation against present company!” and he said, “the present company might put the cap on if it fitted them”; and I said “if he couldn’t keep a civil tongue in his head he had better get off my front stoop”; and he said “he wouldn’t demean himself by bandying words with a beach-comber,” and went off sucking his hand, with the others crowding around him, and asking him how it felt now.