It was several weeks after the arrest of Jimmy Duryea that Nick Carter one morning laid aside the newspaper he had been reading and gave his attention to the hearty breakfast that had just been put before him. He made no remark, although Chick, who was seated at the table at his right, and Patsy Garvan, his second assistant, who was at his left, and Adelina—the wife of Patsy—who was opposite him, all raised their eyes inquiringly to his face, as if they had confidently expected some sort of a statement from their chief. But the detective ate his breakfast in silence; and the three persons who were closest to him in point of intimacy respected that silence, and preserved it on their own several parts. Never, in the house of Nick Carter, had there been a more wordless meal. The two assistants knew what their chief was thinking about; Adelina’s intuitiveness made her aware of Nick Carter’s desire for silence. All knew that presently, when he had thoroughly digested the thoughts induced by the reading of that article in the paper, he would say something upon the subject that so strangely interested each of them. But he had pushed away the breakfast things and had carefully selected a cigar from his case, before he broke that unusual silence; and then he said, addressing no one in particular, but all of them generally: “I don’t care a hang what that supreme court judge says, or how much proof has been brought to sustain the contention of Bare-Faced Jimmy; not a hang. I know that the man is Bare-Faced Jimmy Duryea, otherwise Howard Drummond, and what is more, I am going to chuck everything else aside until I have proved it. I won’t let that fellow beat me.” Chick and Patsy glanced across the table at each other, and nodded. Adelina replied: “Nobody has ever supposed that you would permit such a thing,” she said. “The thing about it that hurts,” said Nick, “is the fact that my testimony and all that Nan Nightingale swore to, went for nothing. I wonder if that judge thinks me a fool? One would suppose that my reputation would stand for something; and yet—— Listen to this paragraph from the learned opinion.” The detective seized the paper, and read aloud: