He was puzzled about von Rittenheim, and he felt sure that there was something in the case that was not in evidence; but the man had pleaded guilty, and there was nothing to do but to hold him for the Grand Jury. "Who'll go on your bond?" he asked, taking up his pen. "Bond?" "You must give a justified bond for your appearance before the United States Court in May." "Oh, I see. I do not know. I have no fr-riends." "It's only two hundred dollars." "It might be only two hundred cents, still would it be the same. Yesterday I thought I had fr-riends, but to-day----" He broke off abruptly, and again Weaver gave a perplexed rub to the top of his head. He opened a door and spoke to a negro boy who passed a waiting life in the anteroom. "Sam, ask Mr. Gudger to step here, if he's in the building." Mr. Gudger was a professional bondsman who added this calling to that of real-estate dealer and insurance agent, and interwove the three occupations with some talent and much success. Von Rittenheim's farm served to secure Gudger against loss, while the mention of its existence caused the commissioner again to rub his head. Why in the world should a man----? He gave up the conundrum in despair, and applied himself to the necessary business. Friedrich took but a passive part in the transaction, whose detail, with its rapid interchange of technicalities, he did not attempt to understand. His courteous dignity and submission to the justice of the legal procedure told nothing of the caldron of feeling boiling within him at the _in_-justice that had brought him to a pass where this thing was right. As he walked away from the Federal Building, his mind began to leave these thoughts and to dwell on the almost equally disagreeable subject of what he should do next. His immediate need was of something to eat. He was sick with hunger, and he found himself even casting a regretful thought after Wilder's quarter of a dollar. His hand had happened to touch it in his pocket during his morning ride, and he had flung it from him as far as he could into the woods beside the road. "But, no," he thought, "rather would I starve than buy food with that." He went up Patton Avenue, and eyed the signs on the buildings in the hope of seeing one that would suggest to him some way of making money. The early morning's rain had turned into snow, that beat into the open place from the north, and drove the loafers from their accustomed haunts. The pavement was whitening rapidly. "The first of April to-morrow," thought von Rittenheim, disgustedly. "What will happen to those pease that I put into the gr-round last week?" As he stood, sheltered from the storm by a projecting building, he reflected that it was useless for him to go back into the country. There was no planting to be done as early as this, except that of a few garden vegetables, and he had no seeds to plant even if he went.