“That would be easy,” he said, smiling sickly, and passed a joke about his schooldays when the paternal hand had more than once sought unerringly a certain region near the equator, in what many households have often designated a “warming-the-jacket” bee. Then he added: “The devil’s to pay. I’ve had bad luck trying to sell your bonds.” “Been playing Dexter at long odds, and had the wrong end of the game, eh?” I asked, taking the matter as calmly as I could, at the same time throwing a little horse-racing chaff at him. He disregarded the pleasantry. “I hate like the devil to tell you, George, but the bonds--they’re gone, and I can’t produce you the money in place of ’em.” “Well?” I interrogated as cheerfully as I could under the circumstances. “The coppers have ’em!” “The devil you say!” I was vulgar without thinking. “You were pinched?” “That’s just it,” admitted Matthews, and I pitied him, for there was that about the little fellow that made me feel, almost know, he was dealing squarely with me, gambler though he was. However, I did not let him in my secret on that score yet, and said, a trifle coldly: “I thought you were a shrewd man. Many of the boys have trusted bonds in your hands for the market.” He actually was suffering after I made this slighting remark, and I was forced to relent. “Don’t take me too seriously, old fellow,” said I, “and tell me all about it. If there’s a muddle, we must get out of it some way. It’s a mighty scarce hole that’ll let a man in that won’t let him out if he tries hard to get out.” “There’s no use chopping matters, George,” he said; “I trusted a man too much, and I’m in deep, that’s all.” Then Billy told me how he had taken a man with him to dispose of the bonds, a Bill Brockway, whom I didn’t know, and that they went to a broker’s office in Wall Street. Brockway, whom he thought to be “right,” proved to be all wrong by betraying him to a pair of Central Office detectives. Recollecting Tim Golden, of the Detective Bureau at 300 Mulberry Street, I expressed a curiosity to know the identity of the detectives in this case. “Jack McCord and George Radford,” explained Billy. I had never heard of them, which was not at all strange because of my short life in New York. “Brockway and I were arrested,” continued Billy, “and the detectives took the bonds.” “But you got out of jail, I see,” was my comment. “We weren’t taken to Police Headquarters. They kept the bonds and turned us loose on a promise. McCord and Radford have a habit of doing business that way with us fellers.” “On a promise?” I inquired. “Yes, the cops said we could go if I’d produce the man who gave me the bonds to sell. Of course Brockway, curse the traitor, was in the game with them.” “And you agreed to produce me?” I asked. “Yes, of course. What else could I do.”