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“No, it ain’t,” agreed Philo Gubb.

“I got a suspicion who the feller is,” said Gabe.

“Who?” asked Philo Gubb.

“You’ll go ahead with the case? On the terms we settled on?” asked old Gabe.

Philo Gubb considered this carefully.

“Why, yes,” he said at length, “I will. Who is the feller you think is doin’ it?”

“Farrin’ton Pierce, the cashier of the Farmers’ and Citizens’ Bank,” said old Gabe, his eyes shining with malice and shrewdness, as he leaned forward and whispered the words. “My own son-in-law, he is. An’ I’ll tell you why he’s tryin’ it. For my money. So his wife’ll get it, an’ he can be president of the bank in my place.”

“You’ve seen him have a pea-shooter?” asked Philo Gubb.

“No, sir!” said old Gabe. “And I never seen one of the peas. All I ever felt was the sting of it when it hit me.”

“Maybe,” said Philo Gubb eagerly, “maybe it ain’t a pea-shooter. Maybe it’s a twenty-two short pistol with a silencer onto it. Maybe it’s only because he’s been afraid to come nigh enough to you that he ain’t killed you yet. It don’t seem to me that any man would try to murder any one with a pea-shooter.”

“Humph!” said old Gabe. “Maybe you are right, at that. That’s something I never thought of. It sounds likely, too.”

“A deteckative has to think of all them things,” said Philo simply. “If I was you I’d be more careful.”

“I will!” said old Gabe. “See here, if he’s shootin’ at me like that, it ain’t no joke, is it? Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll let you off from payin’ me that dollar five a day. Just you hustle onto this case and keep at it, and I’ll leave you work on it for nothin’. All I want is that you should send me word reg’lar of what you find out.”

“It is the custom of all the graduates of the Rising Sun Correspondence School deteckatives to make reg’lar reports in writing,” said Philo Gubb. “I’ll start right in shadowing and trailing Mister Farrington Pierce, according to Lessons Three and Four, and I’ll report reg’lar every day.”

“Everything you find out,” said old Gabe. “Don’t leave out a thing. And particularly at night. That’s when he shoots me the most.”

“I won’t leave him a minute,” said Philo Gubb. “I’ve got a man I hire to help me on my paper-hangin’, and I’ll get him to finish up this job. I’ll start trailin’ and shadowin’ Farry Pierce right away.”

Old Gabe shook hands with Philo and went out. When the door was closed behind him he chuckled, and all the way home his face was creased in a grin. He felt that he had done a good bit of business and saved himself a good sum of money. Philo Gubb, in the meantime, having put a false beard and a wig in his pocket, went out.

Across the street from the bank was Grammill’s Cigar Store, where the idler men of the town loafed when they had nothing better on hand, and Philo Gubb entered and bought a cigar and took an easy loafing position near the front window. He commanded a view of the only entrance to the bank, and here he waited. At fifteen minutes after three Farry Pierce came out of the bank.

“There’s a man with an easy job,” said one of the loafers. “That Farry Pierce. Nothing to do till to-morrow.”

“Too much time on his hands, I guess,” said another, who–by the way–had more spare time than Farry Pierce. “From what I hear he’d be better off if he had to work all day and all night.”

“The widow?” asked the first speaker.

“That’s what they say,” said the second. “They tell me he’s blowing all his salary and more on that widow. Must make old Gabe crazy to see any of his kin spend money that way. Or any way. He’s a close one, old Gabe is.”