"I certainly am, and I'm under deep obligations to Miss Winton. If ever my home becomes once more what it was to start with, it will be her work. Could a man bear heavier obligation than that?" "Well hardly," said Mickey. "Course there wouldn't likely ever be anything you could do for Miss Leslie that would square _that_ deal; but I'm worried about my boss something awful." "Why Mickey?" asked Mr. Minturn. "That investigation you started him on." "I did start him on that. What's the matter?" "Well the returns are about all in," said Mickey, "and the man who draws the candy suit is about ready to put it on. See?" "Good! Exactly what he should do." "Yes exactly," agreed Mickey dryly, "but _who_ do you figure it is? We got some good friends in the City Hall." "Always is somebody you don't expect," said Mr. Minturn. "Don't waste any sympathy on them, Mickey." "Not unless in some way my boss got himself into trouble," said Mickey. "There's no possible way he could." "About the smartest man in Multiopolis thinks yes," said Mickey. "I just been talking with him." "Who, Mickey?" asked Mr. Minturn, instantly. "Chaffner of the _Herald_," said Mickey. "_What!_" Mr. Minturn seized the boy's arm, shoved him inside his door and closed it. Mickey pulled away and turned a belligerent face upward. "Now nix on knocking me down with _your_ 'whats!'" he cried. "I just been hammered meller with his, and dragged into his room, and shut up, and scared stiff, about twenty minutes ago." "_The devil you say!_" exploded Mr. Minturn. "No, I said Chaffner!" insisted Mickey. "Chaffner of the _Herald_. I'm going to write a poetry piece for his front page, some day soon now. I been selling his paper all my life." "And so you're a friend of Chaffner's?" "Oh not bosom and inseparable," explained Mickey. "I haven't seen so awful much of him, but when I do, we get along fine." "And he said----?" questioned Mr. Minturn. "Just what I been afraid of all the time," said Mickey. "That these investigations at times got into places you didn't _look_ for, and made awful trouble; and that my boss _might_ get it with his." "Mickey, you will promise me something?" asked Mr. Minturn. "You see I started Mr. Bruce on this trying to help him to a case that would bring him into prominence, so if it should go wrong, it's in a way through me. If you think Douglas is unlike himself, or worried, will you tell me? Will you?" "Why surest thing you know!" cried Mickey. "Why I should say I would! Gee, you're great too! I think I'll like you awful well when we get acquainted."