“It certainly is, Toby. I’m as sorry as anything. Hang it, if you hadn’t been crazy enough to hand out money to a beggar it wouldn’t have happened. After this――” “I know, but there won’t be any after this. Look here, Arn, I wish you’d let me have a dime and then run along home. I want to look around a bit and there’s no use dragging you around too. Will you?” “Look around? You mean you want to look for the chap who swiped your purse? That’s crazy, Toby, honestly. You haven’t got one chance in a hundred, one chance in ten thousand, of ever seeing him again.” “Maybe not, but――but I’d sort of like to try, Arn. You slip me a dime and――” “Slip you nothing! If you must make a silly ass of yourself I’ll stick around with you. Where do you want to go first?” “Where’s the nearest big store like this?” “I don’t know, but we can go and look for it. Do you think he’ll be there?” “He might be. You see, if he did so well here he might think he ought to stick to department stores, and he’d probably take the next one. Wouldn’t you argue about like that, Arn?” “Maybe I would, if I were a pickpocket,” chuckled Arnold. “All right, old man. Come on. Only I warn you right now that you’re only starting on a wild goose chase, so don’t be disappointed, Toby.” “I shan’t be,” answered Toby soberly. On the sidewalk he left Arnold and addressed the carriage-man on the curb. “He says,” he announced when he rejoined his chum, “that there’s another big store just a little way along here. It’s the nearest, so I guess we’d better go there first.” “First? You don’t mean that you intend to make the round of all the department stores, do you?” “I guess there wouldn’t be time for that,” answered Toby, shaking his head. “You see, my train leaves at three-forty. Besides, I guess that fellow with the red mustache would get tired, or maybe he’d make so much money by dinner time he’d just naturally quit. If he got eight dollars from every one he tackled he’d be mighty well off by noon, wouldn’t he?” “Toby, you’re an awful idiot,” laughed Arnold affectionately as he took him by the arm and steered him along the street. “I’ll let you play detective till a quarter to one. Then you’ve got to give up and come home to luncheon.” “All right. I dare say we can do half a dozen stores by that time. Listen, Arn, I’ll tell you what the man looked like so you can be on the watch too, eh? He was short and sort of slim, and he wore a brown overcoat with a velvet collar, and he had a reddish mustache cut close and sort of bristly, and he wore a slouch hat.” “A what?” “A slouch hat; a soft one, you know; felt. It was dark; I think either black or dark gray.” “Well, that’s a pretty good description considering you only saw him for a second,” applauded Arnold as they entered the store. “We’d better keep out of sight as much as we can, because if he spotted us first he’d suspect something and run. Let’s go around here and work back and then come down the next aisle, and so on. Shall we?”