Part 3 (1/2)

Philo Gubb's experienced eye saw at once that this creature was less wild than he was painted. He lowered the paste-brush.

”Come into this house,” said Philo Gubb. ”Inside the house we can discuss pants in calmness.”

The Tasmanian Wild Man accepted.

”Now, then,” said Philo Gubb, when they were safe in the kitchen. He seated himself on a roll of wall-paper, and the Tasmanian Wild Man, whose real name was Waldo Emerson Snooks, told his brief story.

Upon graduating from Harvard, he had sought employment, offering to furnish entertainment by the evening, reading an essay ent.i.tled, ”The Comparative Mentality of Ibsen and Emerson, with Sidelights on the Effect of Turnip Diet at Brook Farm,” but the agency was unable to get him any engagements. They happened, however, to receive a request from Mr. Dorgan, manager of the side-show, asking for a Tasmanian Wild Man, and Mr. Snooks had taken that job. To his own surprise, he made an excellent Wild Man. He was able to rattle his chains, dash up and down the cage, gnaw the iron bars of the cage, eat raw meat, and howl as no other Tasmanian Wild Man had ever done those things, and all would have been well if an interloper had not entered the side-show.

The interloper was Mr. Winterberry, who had introduced the subject of Ibsen's plays, and in a discussion of them the Tasmanian Wild Man and Mr. Hoxie, the Strong Man, had quarreled, and Mr. Hoxie had threatened to tear Mr. Snooks limb from limb.

”And he would have done so,” said the Tasmanian Wild Man with emotion, ”if I had not fled. I dare not return. I mean to work my way back to Boston and give up Tasmanian Wild Man-ing as a profession. But I cannot without pants.”

”I guess you can't,” said Philo Gubb. ”In any station of Boston life, pants is expected to be worn.”

”So the question is, old chap, where am I to be panted?” said Waldo Emerson Snooks.

”I can't pant you,” said Philo Gubb, ”but I can overall you.”

The late Tasmanian Wild Man was most grateful. When he was dressed in the overalls and had wiped the grease-paint from his face on an old rag, no one would have recognized him.

”And as for thanks,” said Philo Gubb, ”don't mention it. A deteckative gent is obliged to keep up a set of disguises. .h.i.therto unsuspected by the mortal world. This Tasmanian Wild Man outfit will do for a hermit disguise. So you don't owe me no thanks.”

As Philo Gubb watched Waldo Emerson Snooks start in the direction of Boston--only some thirteen hundred miles away--he had no idea how soon he would have occasion to use the Tasmanian Wild Man disguise, but hardly had the Wild Man departed than a small boy came to summon Mr.

Gubb, and it was with a sense of elation and importance that he appeared before the meeting of the Riverbank Ladies' Social Service League.

”And so,” said Mrs. Garthwaite, at the close of the interview, ”you understand us, Mr. Gubb?”

”Yes, ma'am,” said Philo Gubb. ”What you want me to do, is to find Mr.

Winterberry, ain't it?”

”Exactly,” agreed Mrs. Garthwaite.

”And, when found,” said Mr. Gubb, ”the said stolen goods is to be returned to you?”

”Just so.”

”And the fiends in human form that stole him are to be given the full limit of the law?”

”They certainly deserve it, abducting a nice little gentleman like Mr.

Winterberry,” said Mrs. Garthwaite.

”They do, indeed,” said Philo Gubb, ”and they shall be. I would only ask how far you want me to arrest. If the manager of the side-show stole him, my natural and professional deteckative instincts would tell me to arrest the manager; and if the whole side-show stole him I would make bold to arrest the whole side-show; but if the whole circus stole him, am I to arrest the whole circus, and if so ought I to include the menagerie? Ought I to arrest the elephants and the camels?”

”Arrest only those in human form,” said Mrs. Garthwaite.

Philo Gubb sat straight and put his hands on his knees.

”In referring to human form, ma'am,” he asked, ”do you include them oorangootangs and apes?”

”I do,” said Mrs. Garthwaite. ”a.s.sociation with criminals has probably inclined their poor minds to criminality.”