"Not exactly that. I said you would not be needed. You see Miss Remsen thinks that you come into and go out of rooms with too little noise. She is very nervous, and it startles her to find you in her presence, without having heard you enter." "You are a devil!" replied Lucette in a passion, as she darted through the door, which Mr. Mitchel had unlocked, and ran down-stairs and out of the house. "I was right," thought Mr. Mitchel, as he sat down once more. Lucette hurried across to Broadway and went into the district telegraph office at the corner. Hastily scribbling a few lines on a blank, she asked for a boy, and gave him a coin with the instruction to "hurry." She then went down to Madison Square and waited there--I was about to write, patiently--but really the word would not apply. She sat on a bench. Jumped up in less than five minutes, walked about for awhile, and then sat down again, repeating this over and over, till it was plain that she was in a bad humor,--a very bad humor. At last she saw a man approaching her, and hurried to meet him. It was Mr. Barnes. He, too, looked excited. "Well, what is it? Why are you here?" he asked. "I am discharged!" "Discharged? Why?" "I don't know why, but that devil Mitchel is at the bottom of it. He locked me up for two hours this morning, and then told me Miss Remsen would not need me any further. I felt like scratching his eyes out." She then told the story to the detective, winding up with, "From what I did catch of their conversation last night I think he has made a confidant of his sweetheart. He asked her to help him and just as he was about to tell her what to do, somehow he saw me and closed up like a clam. I think now it had something to do with the child." "By heaven, you are right. I see it all. I had just returned from that house, when I got your note and came up here. I went to the school this morning pretending that I wished to place a child there. Then, after a while, I asked if my friend Mr. Mitchel's daughter, Rose, was not at the school. 'Yes,' replied the woman in charge, 'but she has just left us.' 'Left you,' said I, 'when?' 'About ten minutes ago. Her mother called for her in a carriage and took her away.' Don't you see, whilst you were locked in that room, Miss Remsen went down and removed the child." "But Miss Remsen is not her mother?" "No, stupid. Haven't you any sense left at all? Are you going to be a bungler all your life? This comes of your disobedience. You let Mitchel see you in the elevated train, and now you find out how smart you were." "Nonsense, he never recognized me." "He did. I was a fool to trust such an important matter to a woman." "Oh! were you? Well that woman is not such a fool as you think. I have that button back." "Ah! Good! How did you manage it?"