"Yes, I want to get that off my hands," responded Phil. "I wonder who this Peter Dawson can be? That's the name on the letter. Here's the street. 'At the sign of the Pestle and Mortar' is the address. There's no shop going here now, though--moved out. It must be upstairs." They were now in the meanest part of the city, which Phil told Andy in ordinary times was known as a sort of rendezvous for smugglers, fugitives from justice, and that class of social outcasts. They entered an open passageway at the side of the building and ascended a rickety pair of stairs. Phil knocked long and loudly at a door until some one inquired in the rasping voice of an asthmatic old woman: "Who is that, now?" "We are looking for Mr. Peter Dawson," said Phil. "Who be you?" "We're from the man who is waiting," answered Phil promptly, just as he had been instructed to say by the general. "And you want to see the man who knows?" came the quick query. "I reckon you are all right." "She has answered with the counter-challenge the general spoke of," said Phil to Andy, "so, I guess we're at the right place." The door before them was unbarred, and a very old hobbling woman confronted the Musket Boys, let them into a poorly furnished room, relocked the door securely, and said: "You wait just a bit." She left the room for a minute or two, returned to them, and beckoned for them to follow her. At the end of a long dark passageway she stepped aside, pushed open a door, and Phil and Andy passed into a small apartment. It had but one entrance and exit--the door behind them,--but over at one side a small sashless slit appeared in the wall. Through this came a quick challenge: "If you have anything to say, speak it out. If you have a message, hand it through here." "Adams," said Phil, as he had been instructed. "Washington," came the prompt response from behind the wall aperture, and Phil knew that everything was all right. "Why, say Phil--Phil Warrington!" "Well!" ejaculated the petrified Andy. "You aren't known, or anything! And in that disguise, too!" "I wonder"--began Phil, and then he knew who had spoken his name. There was a scramble from the slit in the wall, and a minute later a glad, familiar form bounded over the threshold of the same doorway at which the two chums had entered. "Burt Noble!" cried Phil, and Andy returning the kindly outburst, they vied with one another to show how glad they were to see him. "You did not expect to see me here, eh?" propounded Burt. "I didn't expect to have you come here, either. Well, we're satisfied, all hands around. Get through with business, and then I want to know everything you've done since we last met."