“Is _that_ so?” The quack’s voice had taken on a sneering intonation. “You come back here with your job not half done, with the guilty fellers loose an’ runnin’, an’ you expect me to pay over, the five thousand dollars to you. Huh!” “No, I—er—don’t expect—er—anything of the sort,” said Average Jones slowly. Doctor Hoff’s little, restless eyes puckered at the corners. He was puzzled. What did the young fellow mean? “Don’t, eh?” he said, groping in his mind for a solution. “No. You forgot to send me that promised form of agreement, didn’t you? Thought you’d fooled me, perhaps. Well, I wouldn’t be so foolish as to expect anything in the way of fair and honorable dealing when I contract to do up a mining swindler for the benefit of the only meaner creature on God’s earth—a patent medicine poisoner. So I took precautions.” “Say, be careful of what you say, young man,” blustered the quack. “I am—quite particular. And, before you leave, wouldn’t you like to hear about the five thousand dollars I got for my little job?” Doctor Hoff blinked rapidly. “What didje say?” he finally inquired. “Five—er—thousand—er—dollars.” “You got it?” “In the bank.” “Where dje get it?” “From you, through your son’s check, duly certified.” Doctor Hoff blinked more rapidly and moistened his lips with an effortful tongue. “H-h-how dje work it?” he asked in a die-away voice. “By a forced sale of water rights to the North Pinto Gold Mining Company, dissolved, in which Mr. Roderick Hoff was vice-president and silent partner,” replied Average Jones with an amiable smile, as he opened the door significantly. CHAPTER IV. THE MERCY SIGN—ONE “Want a job, Average?” Bertram, his elegance undimmed by the first really trying weather of the early summer, drifted to the coolest spot in the Ad-Visor’s sanctum and spread his languid length along a wicker settee. “Give a man breathing space, can’t you?” returned Average Jones. “This is hotter than Baja California.” “Why, I assumed that your quest of the quack’s scion would have trained you down fit for anything.” “Haven’t even caught up with the clippings that Simpson floods me with, since I came back,” confessed the other. “What have you got up your faultlessly creased sleeve? It’s got to be something different to rouse me from a well-earned lethargy.” “Because a man buncoes a loving father out of five thousand dollars,” Average Jones snorted gently, “is no reason why he should unanimously elect himself a life member of the Sons of Idleness,” murmured Bertram.