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“Are you out from the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency yourself?” he asked.

The Bald Impostor smiled.

“I wrote you a letter yesterday,” he said. “If you have not received it yet you will soon, but I can give you the contents here and now. A certain impostor is going about the country–“

Philo Gubb picked up the letter and glanced at the signature. It was indeed signed “Allwood Burns.” Mr. Gubb extended his hand again and once more shook the hand of his visitor–this time far more heartily.

“Most glad, indeed, to meet your acquaintance, Mr. Burns,” said Philo Gubb heartily. “It is a pleasure to meet anybody from the offices of the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency. And if you ever see the man that wrote the ‘Complete Correspondence Course of Deteckating,’ I wish–“

The false Mr. Burns smiled.

“I wrote it,” he said modestly.

“I am most very glad to meet you, sir!” exclaimed Philo Gubb, and again he shook his visitor’s hand. “Because–“

“Ah, yes, because–” queried the Bald Impostor pleasantly.

“Because,” said Philo Gubb, “there’s a question I want to ask. I refer to Lesson Seven, ‘Petty Thievery, Detecting Same, Charges Therefor.’ I have had some trouble with ‘Charges Therefor.'”

“Indeed? Let me see the lesson, please,” said the Bald Impostor.

“‘The charges for such services,'” Philo Gubb read, pointing to the paragraph with his long forefinger, “‘should be not less than ten dollars per diem.’ That’s what it says, ain’t it?”

“It does,” said the Bald Impostor.

“Well, Mr. Burns,” said Philo Gubb, “I took on a job of chicken-thief detecting, and I had to detect for two diems to do it, and that would be twenty dollars, wouldn’t it?”

“It would,” said the Bald Impostor.

“Which is fair and proper,” said Philo Gubb, “but the old gent wouldn’t pay it. So I ask you if you’d be kindly willing to go to him along with me in company and tell him I charged right and according to rates as low as possible?”

“Of course I will go,” said the Bald Impostor.

“All right!” said Philo Gubb, rising. “And the old gent is a man you’ll be glad to meet. He’s a prominent citizen gentleman of the town. His name is Judge Orley Morvis.”

The Bald Impostor gasped. Every free-acting pore on his head worked immediately.

“And, so he won’t suspicion that I’m running in some outsider on him,” said Philo Gubb, “I’ll fetch along this letter you wrote me, to certify your identical identity.”

He picked up the warning letter from the Rising Sun Agency, and stood waiting for the Bald Impostor to arise. But the Bald Impostor did not arise. For once at least he was flabbergasted. He opened and shut his mouth, like a fish out of water. His head seemed to exude millions of moist beads. He saw a smile of triumph on Philo Gubb’s face. Mr. Gubb was smiling triumphantly because he was able now to show Judge Orley Morvis a thing or two, but the Bald Impostor was sure Philo Gubb knew he was the Bald Impostor. He was caught and he knew it. So he surrendered.

“All right!” he said nervously. “You’ve got me. I won’t give you any trouble.”

“It’s me that’s being a troubling nuisance to you, Mr. Burns,” said Philo Gubb.

The paper-hanger detective stopped short. A look of shame passed across his face.

“I hope you will humbly pardon me, Mr. Burns,” he said contritely. “I am ashamed of myself. To think of me starting to get you to attend to my business when prob’ly you have business much more important that fetched you to Riverbank.”

A sudden light seemed to break upon Philo Gubb.

“Of a certain course!” he exclaimed. “What you come about was this–this”–he looked at the letter in his hand–“this Bald Impostor, wasn’t it?”

Philo Gubb’s visitor, who had begun to breathe normally again, gasped like a fish once more. He saw Philo Gubb finish reading the description of the Bald Impostor, and then Philo Gubb looked up and looked the Bald Impostor full in the face. He looked the Bald Impostor over, from bald spot to shoes, and looked back again at the description. Item by item he compared the description in the letter with the appearance of the man before him, while the Impostor continued to wipe the palms of his hands with the balled handkerchief. At last Philo Gubb nodded his head.