Mad? Oh, he was hopping! A German swear-word burst from him. I don't know what it meant, but I can imagine. "Look here, I give you one more chance," he squeaked; "if you don't--" "What'll you do?" I was sure I had him. I was sure, from the very whisper in which he had spoken, that the last thing in the world he wanted was to have that agreement made public by my arrest. But I tripped up on one thing. I didn't know there was a middle way for a man with money. His manner changed. "Nance Olden," he said aloud now, "I charge you with stealing a valuable private paper of mine from my desk. Here, Sergeant!" I hadn't particularly noticed the Sergeant standing at the other door with his back to us. But from the way he came at Tausig's call I knew he'd had a private talk with him, and I knew he'd found the middle way. "This girl's taken a paper of mine. I want her searched," Tausig cried. "Do you mean," I said, "that you'll sign your name to such a charge against me?" He didn't answer. He had pulled the Sergeant down and was whispering in his ear. I knew what that meant. It meant a special pull and a special way of doing things and-- "You'll do well, my girl, to give up Mr. Tausig's property to him," the Sergeant said stiffly. "But what have I got that belongs to him?" I demanded. He grinned and shrugged his big shoulders. "We've a way of finding out, you know, here. Give it up or--" "But what does he say I've taken? What charge is there against me? Have you the right to search any woman who walks in here? And what in the world would I want a paper of Tausig's for?" "You won't give it up then?" He tapped a bell. A woman came in. I had a bad minute there, but it didn't last; it wasn't the matron I'd brought the baby to. "You'll take this girl into the other room and search her thoroughly. The thing we're looking for--" The Sergeant turned to Tausig. "A small paper," he said eagerly. "A--a contract--just a single sheet of legal cap paper it was type-written and signed by myself and some other gentlemen, and folded twice." The woman looked at me. She was a bit hard-mouthed, with iron-gray hair, but her eyes looked as though they'd seen a lot and learned not to flinch, though they still felt like it. I knew that kind of look--I'd seen it at the Cruelty. "What an unpleasant job this of yours is," I said to her, smiling up at her for all the world as that tike of a baby had smiled at me, and watching her melt just as I had. "I'll not make it a bit harder. This thing's all a mistake. Which way? ... I'll come back, Mr. Tausig, to receive your apology, but you can hardly expect me to go to lunch after this." He growled a wrathful, resenting mouthful. But he looked a bit puzzled just the same. He looked more puzzled yet, even bewildered, when we came back into the main office a quarter of an hour later, the woman and I, and she reported that no paper of any kind had she found.