“Bless my soul! Why didn’t you say so at once?” asked the doctor, in some alarm. “I would have, only you had your door locked, and an honest person can’t make her way about,” and the housekeeper looked very much hurt. “I’ll get a plumber at once,” said the doctor. “I know where there is one, on this street, or is it the next street?--I can’t seem to remember now----” “And the water is squirting all over the kitchen,” went on Mrs. Sandow. “It ought to be shut off, only I don’t know where to shut it off. That’s another secret about this house,” she added significantly. “I think I can find out the place to shut it off,” said Tom. “Very likely it’s down in the cellar.” “Humph! It’s a good thing you know something,” said Mrs. Sandow, with a sniff. In a few moments the telephone boy had shut off the water, and the plumber had been summoned. That mechanic promised to come at once, and repair the leak. “If you had attended to the pipe when I told you to,” went on Mrs. Sandow, when the excitement had somewhat calmed down, “this never would have happened.” “I meant to,” said the doctor, “but I forgot----” “You’re always forgetting,” interrupted his sister-in-law. “Some day you’ll forget to come home, or lose yourself and then----” “I’ve lost something now,” exclaimed the doctor. “We were just hunting for something when you knocked, Mrs. Sandow. Have you seen----” Tom was attacked with a sudden fit of coughing. He wanted to attract the doctor’s attention, and warn him not to speak of the papers. “Bless my soul!” exclaimed the physician, when he saw what a spasm Tom was having. “That’s a terrible cough. You must take something for it. I would write you a prescription, only I have such a wretched memory that I might start to give you something for a cough, and end up by writing out directions how to cure the mumps. You haven’t the mumps, have you?” “I had them once, and that was enough,” said Tom. “But, doctor, perhaps I had better call another time.” Tom thought that if he went away, and came back, he would have a chance to speak to the physician alone, and warn him. But the doctor did not seem to understand. He knew he had been looking for something, and that he had not found it. He appealed to the housekeeper, and Tom began to fear that all his plans would miscarry. However, Mrs. Sandow, likely thinking that with such a poor memory to depend on she could obtain no information from the doctor, or else recollecting that her kitchen was covered with water from the burst pipe, hurried from the room. Tom saw his chance, and took it. “I didn’t want to speak of the papers before her,” he said. “She might----” “Oh, yes, it was papers we were looking for,” interrupted the doctor. “I remember now. We couldn’t find them. But they must be here somewhere. I’ll look in some other valuable books.” But the papers were not to be found. Search as the two did, in all likely and unlikely places, the missing documents were not disclosed.