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Durkin, with an officer at either elbow, tried to think far ahead and to think fast. Yet try as he might, his desperate mind could find no crevice in the blind wall of his predicament. Nothing, at any rate, was to be lost by talking.

"What's this for, boys, anyhow?" he asked them, with sadly forced amiability.

"Different things," said Doogan's man O'Reilly, noncommittally.

"But who made the charge—who laid the complaint, I mean?"

Tis an old friend of yours!" chuckled O'Reilly, thinking of other things.

Durkin looked at the man studiously. "Not Robinson?"

"And who's Robinson?—better try another guess!"

"Nor the Postal Union people?"

"And what have you been doin' to them?" retorted the officer, as he gnawed at the corner of his tobacco plug and tucked it away in his vest pocket again.

"They tried to soak me once, without cause,"