"Well, sir, the organization which I belong to is one which is filling a long felt want. You know very well, sir, that this country is full of detective officers, not only those who belong to a regular police force, but lots of private ones, who, if anybody will pay them for it, will go to Jericho to hunt a man up. Now, sir, our object is to protect society against these people. When we get information that a man is going to be hounded down by any of these detectives--and we have private ways of knowing these things--we just go to that man, and if he is willing to become one of our clients, we take him into our charge; and our business, after that, is to keep him informed of just what is being done against him. He can stay at home in comfort with his wife, settle up his accounts, and do what he likes, and the day before he is to be swooped down on, he gets notice from us, and comfortably goes to Chicago, or Jacksonville, where he can take his ease until we post him of the next move of the enemy. If he wants to take extra precautions, and writes a letter to anybody in the place where he lives, dated from London or Hong Kong, and sends that letter under cover to us, we'll see that it is mailed from the place it is dated from, and that it gets into the hands of the detectives. There have been cases where a gentleman has had six months or a year of perfect comfort, by the detectives being thrown off by a letter like this. That is only one of the ways in which we help and protect persons in difficulties who, if it wasn't for us, would be dragged off, hand-cuffed, from the bosom of their families; and who, even if they never got convicted, would have to pay a lot of money to get out of the scrape. Now, I have put myself a good deal out of the way, sir, to come to you, and offer you our assistance." "Me!" exclaimed Croft. "What are you talking about?" The man smiled. "Of course, it's all right to know nothing about it, and it's just what we would advise; but I assure you we are thoroughly posted in your affair, and to let you know that we are, I'll just mention that the case is that of Croft after Keswick, through Candy." "Stuff and nonsense!" exclaimed Lawrence, getting red in the face. "There is no such case!" He was about to say more, when a few words from the anti-detective stopped him suddenly.