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 "Mebbe," returned the boy; "but you'll lose yourn."

"What's this mess got t' do with Hazelton's letter ter me?" demanded Riley, essaying a diversion. "If it was true, which I don't b'lieve at all, 'twouldn't have nothin' t' do with the genuineness of that letter from Paul Hazelton."

"But," said Locke, something almost like pity in his contemptuous smile, "to illustrate what pitiful bunglers you and Hutchinson are, Riley, let me tell you that in making an imitation of my handwriting and attaching the supposed signature of Paul Hazelton, you have mired yourselves in a pit of your own digging. For, as I am not Paul Hazelton, a letter written in imitation of my penmanship and signed with his name must be a forgery. It is my turn now to put the work of a photographer in evidence."