Mr. Gowen then left, and I summoned McParlan to meet me. I was somewhat surprised to observe the change that two years had wrought in the appearance of my operative. While there was no doubt that once more I grasped McParlan by the hand, yet I could scarcely bring myself to believe it. The voice was familiar, and the eye, but all beside seemed different. Much of this transformation was probably owing to out-door exposure, the hard life he had lived, and the yellow wig, which he had been constrained to use after the loss of his hair. I was glad to see that his general health was quite sound again, and the young man still strong and hopeful for the success of his undertaking. Dressed once more, for a few hours at least, in his former decent habiliments, and having taken a bath and enjoyed some manipulations in the barber’s chair, with a dressing down of the artificial head-covering, he seemed more like his former self, and we held a long and profitable interview, during which he related, much more graphically than I can describe, some of the incidents of his life among the Mollies which I have woven into the warp and woof of this narration. A dispatch, purporting to come from McKenna’s sister, saying she was to be married, and wanting him to come to the wedding, had been sent, as per arrangement, preparatory to the meeting with me, demanding the detective’s presence at the Agency. McParlan’s sister was not married, but I wanted to see him; this he distinctly understood, but his friends in Shenandoah did not. It rested with the detective to answer all the questions that McAndrew, Lawler, and the rest of the Mollies might ask him regarding the nuptials and how he enjoyed himself. I knew he was capable of inventing stories, when on detective duty, which would hang together and satisfy all his acquaintances. That night, with a lighter heart and vigorous determination to labor for the extinction of the hateful clan, McKenna bid me adieu and returned to his former headquarters.