"It would be some hard," admitted Philo Gubb. "Then you ought to have more money," said Snooks. "Aunt Martha ought to contribute to the fund. If Aunt Martha contributes to the fund, I'll be good. I'll come out of jail." Aunt Martha opened her shopping bag, and fumbled in it with her old fingers. Philo Gubb took from his pocket the bills he had been given during the morning. He counted them. He had exactly one hundred dollars, just enough to send to Mr. Medderbrook. "How much should I give you, Mr. Gubb?" asked Aunt Martha tremulously, and Philo Gubb stared thoughtfully at the ceiling for a few minutes. When he spoke, his words were cryptic to all those in the room. "Well, ma'am," he said, "I guess ten cents will be about enough. I've got a two-cent postage stamp myself." "Ain't detectives wonderful?" whispered Nan, clinging to Snooks's arm. "You can't ever tell what they really mean." Nobody seemed to care what Philo Gubb meant, but a week later Snooks stopped him on the street and asked him why he had asked for ten cents. "For to register a letter," said Philo Gubb. "A letter I had to send off." THE CHICKEN Philo Gubb, with three rolls of wall-paper under his arm and a pail of mixed paste in one hand, walked along Cherry Street near the brick-yard. On this occasion Mr. Gubb was in a reasonably contented frame of mind, for he had just received his share of the reward for capturing the dynamiters and had this very morning paid the full amount to Mr. Medderbrook, leaving but eleven thousand six hundred and fifty dollars still to be paid that gentleman for the Utterly Hopeless Gold-Mine Stock, and upon the further payment of seventy-five cents--half its cost--Mr. Medderbrook gave him a telegram he had received from Syrilla. The telegram was as follows:-- Rapidly shrinking. Have given up all soups, including tomato soup, chicken soup, mulligatawny, mock turtle, green pea, vegetable, gumbo, lentil, consomme, bouillon and clam broth. Now weigh only nine hundred and fifty pounds. Wire at once whether clam chowder is a soup or a food. Fond remembrances to Gubby. Mr. Gubb was thinking of this telegram as he walked toward his work. Just ahead of him a short lane led, between Mrs. Smith's house and the Cherry Street Methodist Chapel, to the brick-yard. Mrs. Smith's chicken coop stood on the fence line between her property and the brick-yard! [Illustration: "DETECKATING IS MY AIM AND MY PROFESSION"] Philo Gubb had passed Mrs. Smith's front gate when Mrs. Smith waddled to her fence and hailed him. "Oh, Mr. Gubb!" she panted. "You got to excuse me for speakin' to you when I don't know you. Mrs. Miffin says you're a detective." "Deteckating is my aim and my profession," said Mr. Gubb. "Well," said Mrs. Smith, "I want to ask a word of you about crime. I've had a chicken stole." "Chicken-stealing is a crime if ever there was one," said Philo Gubb seriously. "What was the chicken worth?"