"Yes, but he is not marrying Gabrielle himself," said I. "He is trying to help her to find a good husband. You must be generous, Jim, and give a father his due." "Shucks! He spends all his pay on his clothes. Such a dresser you never saw, and what is he? A rubber-neck, that's all." "A what?" "I asked one of the fellows who worked where he does, some time ago, what old man Tescheron did, and he told me he was a rubber-neck. Now, I know very well that a rubber-neck is a fellow who goes around to corner groceries to see what other kinds of crackers are sold there besides the brands furnished by his house. He starts in talking about the price of green-groceries, drifts along for five or ten minutes, and keeps squinting over the cracker boxes. To stave off suspicion he buys an apple, peels it carefully and eats it slowly, while he incidentally craves a cracker and proceeds to pump the innocent grocer on his cracker business. He writes out his notes in full afterward and that grocer is then described on a card index at the main office as handling such and such goods. I ought to know what rubber-necks are, having been around groceries enough." "A sort of cracker detective," said I. "That's all. A common, ordinary rubber-neck--gets about fifteen a week. By the way he dresses you'd think he had a king's job. Think of him looking down upon me. Small as I am, I lead him." "I wonder would he turn up his nose at me, an Inspector of Offensive Trades?" I queried, sadly. "But go ahead, Jim, and stick to your story, for I can see that there is plenty of trouble ahead for you." This startled Jim into a more direct presentation of his problem. "Well, I up and told him, said I: 'Mr. Tescheron, Miss Gabrielle and I would like to be married at her home some time soon,' said I; 'and if you don't wish it that way,' said I, 'I guess we can find a place that will be big enough and will answer just as well,' said I; and then I began to start up warmer and get bolder, when he shut me off with a string of cuss words that ran all over me. I didn't suppose he could talk that way, but no one in the office seemed to mind, although I'll bet you could have heard him a mile down South Street." "South Street?" I asked, in a surprised tone not observed by the single-minded Jim. "Where's his office?" "Fulton Market." "The place they deal in fish at wholesale. And yet you say he is a rubber-neck for a cracker house?" I connected the faint suggestion of fish at the Fifth Avenue Hotel with the case at this point, and knew at once Tescheron's business, and from my knowledge gained by many inspections at the market inferred that the father of the girl was a millionaire. "A queer place for the cracker business," said I. "Well, a fellow told me; that's all I know," said Jim. "I haven't been sitting on the same sofa with the old gentleman asking him questions."