"Yes, sah," said the negro. "That's the amount Mistah Meddahbrook done say." Mr. Gubb could hardly believe it, but he wrote his check for the fifty dollars and then read the telegram. It ran:-- Excelsior! Have lost two hundred pounds since last wire. Now weigh only four hundred pounds. Every one guys me when I am ballyhooed as Fat Lady. Affection to Gubby. Mr. Gubb was greatly pleased by this, but when, the next day, the colored butler again appeared and asked for fifty dollars Mr. Gubb was worried. The telegram this time read:-- Frightened. Have lost two hundred pounds since last wire, now weigh only two hundred. If lose two hundred more will weigh nothing. Have resumed potatoes and water. Love to Gubby. [Illustration: A MAN WHO LOOKED LIKE NAPOLEON BONAPARTE GONE TO SEED] That same afternoon the negro brought Mr. Gubb another telegram, on which he collected seven dollars and fifty cents. This telegram contained these words:-- Am indeed frightened. Have resumed bread diet, soup, fish, meat, and cereals, but have lost fifty pounds more. Weigh only one hundred and fifty. Taking tonic. Hope for the best. Tell Gubby I think of him as much as when I weighed half a ton. Mr. Gubb was much distressed. He had no doubt that his Syrilla would rapidly recover a part of her lost weight, but he felt as if at the moment he had lost Syrilla. He could not picture her as a sylph of one hundred and fifty pounds. He was worried, indeed, as he sat eating his lunch in Mrs. Pilker's mansion. It was then he heard a voice:-- "Say, are you the feller they call Bugg?" Mr. Gubb looked up. In the dining-room door stood a man who looked like Napoleon Bonaparte gone to seed. "If the party you are looking for to seek," said Mr. Gubb with somewhat offended pride, "is Mister P. Gubb, him and me are one and the same party. My name is P. Gubb, deteckative and paper-hanger." "Well, youse is the party I'm looking for," said the stranger. "I got a hunch from Horton, the wall-paper-store feller, that youse was up here and that youse wanted a helper. Does youse?" "If you know paper-hanging as a trade and profession and can go to work immediately at once, I could use you," said Mr. Gubb. "I've got more jobs than I can handle alone by myself." "Say, me a paper-hanger?" said the stranger scornfully. "Why, sport, I've hung more wall-paper than youse ever saw, see? Honest, when I butted in here and saw that there Dietz's 7462 Bessie John on the wall--" "That what?" asked Philo Gubb. "That there Dietz's 7462 Bessie John, on the wall there," explained the stranger. "Don't youse even know the right name of that wall-paper there, that's been a Six Best Seller for the last three years?" "It is a forest tapestry," said Mr. Gubb.