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186 suppose the owner has gone out to see us rescued."

Bob lifted up Libbie, who was the shortest, and, one after the other, the girls climbed in, Bob following last.

It was a finely furnished office and one Bob had never been in, though he had a speaking acquaintance with many of the tenants in the building. A pair of tiny scales and a little heap of yellow dust lay on the highly polished mahogany desk.

The door into the corridor was partly open, and as they had to pass the desk to reach the door, it was natural that the group should draw nearer and glance curiously at the pair of scales.

"No nearer are you to come!" snapped a sharp voice with the precision of a foreigner who is not sure enough of his English to speak hurriedly. "I warn you not to put a finger out."

Libbie squawked outright in terror, and the others fell back a step. A little man with very black eyes stood facing them, and at them he was leveling a small, businesslike looking revolver. The door had closed noiselessly, and he had evidently been behind it.

"I saw you all to enter," he informed them sternly. "I, of all in the building, remembered that it is in excitement that sneak thieves do their best work. Mr. Matthews is trusting, but I—I