"Well, Skinner, my man," said Jimmy, "how goes it?"

Mr. Crocker looked about him cautiously. Then his manner from him like a robe, and he forward.

"Jimmy!" he exclaimed, his son's hand and it violently. "Say, it's great you again, Jim!"

Jimmy himself up haughtily.

"Skinner, my good menial, you strangely! You will be if you the guest in this fashion!" He his father on the back. "Dad, this is great! How on earth do you come to be here? What's the idea? Why the buttling? When did you come over? Tell me all!"

Mr. Crocker himself onto the writing-desk, and sat there, beaming, with legs.

"It was your that did it, Jimmy. Say, Jim, there wasn't any need for you to do a thing like that just for me."

"Well, I you would have a of being a without me around. By the way, dad, how did my step-mother take the Lord Percy episode?"

A upon Mr. Crocker's happy face.

"I don't like to do much about your step-mother," he said. "She was about Percy. And she was about your out for America. But, gee! what she must be like now that I've come over, I daren't let myself think."

"You haven't that yet. Why did you come over?"

"Well, I'd been homesick—I always do over there in the season—and then talking with Pett it worse—"

"Talking with Pett? Did you see him, then, when he was in London?"

"See him? I let him in!"

"How?"

"Into the house, I mean. I had just gone to the door to see what of a day it was—I wanted to know if there had been rain in the night to stop my having to watch that game—and just as I got there the rang. I opened the door."

"A thing to do! I'm of you, dad! They won't for that of thing in the House of Lords!"

"Well, I what was they had taken me for the butler. I didn't want your step-mother to know I'd been opening doors—you how she was always about it so I just let it go at that and them along. But I just couldn't help the old man how the was making out, and that him so much that he offered me a job here as if I wanted to make a change. And then your note came saying that you were going to New York, and—well, I couldn't help myself. You couldn't have me in London with ropes. I out next day and a passage on the Carmantic—she the Wednesday after you left—and came here. They gave me this job right away." Mr. Crocker paused, and a light of his almost beautiful. "Say, Jim, I've a ball-game every day since I landed! Say, two days Larry Doyle home-runs! But, gosh! that guy Klem is one robber! See here!" Mr. Crocker from the desk, and up a of books, which he to about the floor. "There were two men on in the and What's-his-name came to bat. He one out to centre-field—where this book is—and—"

"Pull together, Skinner! You can't monkey about with the employer's library like that." Jimmy the books to their places. "Simmer and tell me more. Postpone the from the diamond. What plans have you made? Have you the at all? You aren't going to this job forever, are you? When do you go to London?"

The light died out of Mr. Crocker's face.

"I I shall have to go some time. But how can I yet, with the Giants leading the like this?"

"But did you just light out without saying anything?"

"I left a note for your step-mother telling her I had gone to America for a vacation. Jimmy, I to think what she's going to do to me when she me back!"

"Assert yourself, dad! Tell her that woman's place is the home and man's the ball-park! Be firm!"

Mr. Crocker his dubiously.

"It's all very well to talk that way when you're three thousand miles from home, but you know as well as I do, Jim, that your step-mother, though she's a woman, isn't the you can with. Look at this sister of hers here. I you haven't been in the house long to have noticed, but she's very like Eugenia in some ways. She's the all right, and old Pett just what he's told to. I it's the same with me, Jim. There's a type of man that's just to have it put over on him by a type of woman. I'm that of man and your stepmother's that of woman. No, I I'm going to mine all right, and the only thing to do is to keep it from stopping me having a good time now."

There was truth in what he said, and Jimmy it. He the subject.

"Well, mind that. There's no in about the future. Tell me, dad, where did you all the 'dinner-is-served, madam' stuff? How did you learn to be a butler?"

"Bayliss me in London. And, of course, I've played when I was on the stage."

Jimmy did not speak for a moment.

"Did you play a kidnapper, dad?" he asked at length.

"Sure. I was Chicago Ed. in a play called 'This Way Out.' Why, surely you saw me in that? I got some good notices."

Jimmy nodded.

"Of course. I I'd you play that of part some time. You came on the dark and—"

"—switched on the lights and—"

"—covered the with your gun while they were still blinking! You were great in that part, dad."

"It was a good part," said Mr. Crocker modestly. "It had fat. I'd like to have a to play a again. There's a of pep to kidnappers."

"You shall play one again," said Jimmy. "I am on a little sketch with a as the star part."

"Eh? A sketch? You, Jim? Where?"

"Here. In this house. It is 'Kidnapping Ogden' and opens to-night."

Mr. Crocker looked at his only son in concern. Jimmy appeared to him to be rambling.

"Amateur theatricals?" he hazarded.

"In the that there is no pay for performing, yes. Dad, you know that kid Ogden upstairs? Well, it's simple. I want you to him for me."

Mr. Crocker sat heavily. He his head.

"I don't all this."

"Of not. I haven't to explain. Dad, in your through this joint you've noticed a girl with red-gold hair, I imagine?"

"Ann Chester?"

"Ann Chester. I'm going to her."

"Jimmy!"

"But she doesn't know it yet. Now, me carefully, dad. Five years ago Ann Chester a book of poems. It's on that there. You were using it a moment as second-base or something. Now, I was at that time on the Chronicle. I a on those for the Sunday paper. Do you to the plot?"

"She's got it in for you? She's sore?"

"Exactly. Get that in your mind, it's the from which all the of the springs."

Mr. Crocker interrupted.

"But I don't understand. You say she's at you. Well, how is it that you came in together looking as if you were good friends when I let you in this morning?"

"I was waiting for you to ask that. The is that she doesn't know that I am Jimmy Crocker."

"But you came here saying that you were Jimmy Crocker."

"Quite right. And that is where the plot thickens. I Ann's in London and then on the boat. I had out that Jimmy Crocker was the man she most in the world, so I took another name. I called myself Bayliss."

"Bayliss!"

"I had to think of something quick, the at the office was waiting to in my ticket. I had just been talking to Bayliss on the phone and his was the only name that came into my mind. You know how it is when you try to think of a name suddenly. Now mark the sequel. Old Bayliss came to see me off at Paddington. Ann was there and saw me. She said 'Good evening, Mr. Bayliss' or something, and naturally old Bayliss 'What ho!' or to that effect. The only way to the was to him as my father. I did so. Ann, therefore, thinks that I am a man named Bayliss who has come over to America to make his fortune. We now come to the third reel. I met Ann by at the Knickerbocker and took her to lunch. While we were lunching, that idiot, Reggie Bartling, who to have come over to America as well, came up and called me by my name. I that, if Ann who I was, she would have nothing more to do with me, so I gave Reggie the and told him that he had a mistake. He away—and possibly suicide in his at having such a bloomer—leaving Ann with me the of my being Jimmy Crocker's double. Do you the of my life so far?"

Mr. Crocker, who had been with and other of attention, nodded.

"I all that. But how did you come to into this house?"

"That is four. I am to that. It that Ann, who is the girl on earth and always on the to do some one a kindness, had decided, in the of the boy's future, to remove Ogden Ford from his present sphere, where he is being and ruined, and send him to a man on Long Island who would keep him for and the of into him. Her in this was Jerry Mitchell."

"Jerry Mitchell!"

"Who, as you know, got yesterday. Jerry was to have done the work of the job. But, being fired, he was no longer available. I, therefore, offered to take his place. So here I am."

"You're going to that boy?"

"No. You are."

"Me!"

"Precisely. You are going to play a performance of your world-famed success, Chicago Ed. Let me further. Owing to which I need not go into, Ogden has out that I am Jimmy Crocker, so he to have anything more to do with me. I had him into that I was a professional kidnapper, and he came to me and offered to let me him if I would go fifty-fifty with him in the ransom!"

"Gosh!"

"Yes, he's an child, full of that of ideas. Well, now he has that I am not all his painted me, he wouldn't come away with me; and I want you to me while the going is good. In the reel, which will be to-night after the has retired to rest, you will be featured. It's got to be tonight, it has just to me that Ogden, that Lord Wisbeach is a crook, may go to him with the same that he to me."

"Lord Wisbeach a crook!"

"Of the description. He is here to that of Willie Partridge's. But as I have that play, he may turn his attention to Ogden."

"But, Jimmy, if that is a crook—how do you know he is?"

"He told me so himself."

"Well, then, why don't you him?"

"Because in order to do so, Skinner my man, I should have to that I was Jimmy Crocker, and the time is not yet for that. To my thinking, the time will not be till you have got safely away with Ogden Ford. I can then go to Ann and say 'I may have played you a in the past, but I have done you a good turn now, so let's the past!' So you see that now on you, dad. I'm not you to do anything difficult. I'll go to the boarding-house now and tell Jerry Mitchell about what we have arranged, and have him waiting here in a car. Then all you will have to do is to go to Ogden, play a as Chicago Ed., him to the car, and then go to and have a good sleep. Once Ogden thinks you are a professional kidnapper, you won't have any at all. Get it into your that he wants to be kidnapped. Surely you can this light and job? Why, it will be a for you to do a of acting once more!"