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Judge Orley Morvis took the letter with an air of disdain and began to read it with a certain irritating superciliousness. Almost immediately he began to turn red behind the ears. Then his ears turned red. Then his whole face turned red. He breathed hard. His hand shook with rage.

“Well, of all the infernal–” he began and stopped.

“Has the aforesaid impostor been to see you?” asked Philo Gubb eagerly.

“Me? Nonsense!” exclaimed the Judge violently. “Do you think I would be taken in by a child’s trick like this? Nonsense, Mr. Gubb, nonsense!”

“I didn’t hardly think it was possible,” said Detective Gubb.

“Possible?” cried the Judge with anger. “Do you think a common faker like that could hoodwink me? Me give an impostor twenty dollars! Nonsense, sir!”

He arose. He was in a great rage about it. He stamped to the door.

“And don’t let me hear you retailing any such lie about me around this town, sir!” he exclaimed.

He slammed the door, and then the Bald Impostor slowly raised his head above the desk.

“What did you hide for?” asked Philo Gubb.

The Bald Impostor wiped his bedewed brow.

“Hide?” he said questioningly. “Oh, yes, I did hide, didn’t I? Yes. Yes, I hid. You see–you see the Judge came in.”

“If you hadn’t hid,” said Philo Gubb, “I could have got that business of the per diem charge per day fixed up right here. I was going to introduce him to you.”

“Yes–going to introduce him to me,” said the Bald Impostor. “That was it. That was why I hid. You were going to introduce him to me, don’t you see?”

“I don’t quite comprehend the meaning of the reason,” said Philo Gubb.

“Why, you see,” said the Bald Impostor glibly,–“you see–if you introduced me to him–why–why, he’d know me.”

“He’d know you?” said Philo Gubb.

“He’d know me,” repeated the false Mr. Burns. “I’ll tell you why. The Bald Impostor did call on him.”

“Honest?”

“I was there,” said the Bald Impostor. “The Judge gave him twenty dollars and a copy of some book or other he had written, and he wrote his autograph in the book. Remember that. The Judge wrote his autograph in a book–and gave it to the fellow. I’m telling you this so you can tell the Judge. Tell him I told you. Tell him the fellow’s mother is much better now. Tell him Judge Bassio Bates’s toe is quite well. And then ask him for the twenty dollars he owes you. You’ll get it.”

“And you was there?” asked Philo Gubb, amazed.

“Out of sight, but there,” said the false Mr. Burns glibly. “Just ready to put my hand on the fellow–but I couldn’t. I hadn’t the heart to do it. I thought of the ridicule it would bring down on the poor old Judge. You know he’s an uncle of mine. I’m his nephew.”

“He said,” said Philo Gubb hesitatingly, “he’d never heard of you.”

“He never did,” said the Bald Impostor promptly. “I was his third sister’s adopted child–I am an adopted nephew. And of course you know he would never have anything to do with his sister after she married–ah–General Winston Wells. Not a thing! It was what killed my poor foster mother. Grief!”

He wiped his eyes with his silk handkerchief.

“Grief. Yes, grief. And I hadn’t the heart to bring shame to the old man by arresting the Impostor in his house–by showing that the good old man was such a silly old fellow as to be done by a simple trick. And what did it matter? I can pick up the Bald Impostor in Derlingport.”

“In Derlingport?” queried Philo Gubb.

“In Derlingport,” said the Bald Impostor nervously, “for that is where he went. I’ll get him there. But half of the thousand dollars is rightfully yours, and you shall have it.”

“Thousand dollars?” queried Philo Gubb in amazement.

“The reward has been increased,” said the false Mr. Burns. “The–the publishers of ‘Who’s Who’ increased it to a thousand because the Bald Impostor works on the names in their book. They thought they ought to. But you shall have your half of the thousand. I can pick him up in Derlingport this afternoon if–if I can get there in time. And of course I should have arrested him here in Riverbank where you are our correspondent and thus entitled to half the reward earned by any one in the head office. You knew that, didn’t you?”

“No!” said Philo Gubb. “Am I?”

“Didn’t you get circular No. 786?” asked the Bald Impostor.

“I didn’t ever get the receipt of it at all,” said Mr. Gubb.

“An oversight,” said the Bald Impostor. “I’ll send you one the minute I get back to Chicago. I’ll pick up the Bald Impostor at Derlingport this afternoon–if–Mr. Gubb, I am ashamed to make an admission to you. I–“

The Bald Impostor sat on the edge of his chair and pearls of perspiration came upon his brow. He took out his silk handkerchief and wiped his forehead.

“Go right on ahead and say whatever you’ve got upon your mind to say,” said Mr. Gubb.

“Well, the fact is,” said the false Mr. Burns nervously, “I’m short of cash. I need just one dollar and eighty cents to get to Derlingport!”

“Why, of course!” said Philo Gubb heartily. “All of us get into similar or like predicaments at various often times, Mr. Burns. It is a pleasure to be able to help out a feller deteckative in such a time and manner. Only–“

“Yes?” said the Bald Impostor nervously.

“Only I couldn’t think of giving you only the bare mere sum to get to Derlingport,” said the graduate of the Rising Sun Detective Agency’s Correspondence School of Detecting, generously. “I couldn’t think of letting you start off away with anything less than a ten-dollar bill.”