Page:Lefty o' the Bush.djvu/200

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with you, it isn't likely you'll have a reputation that'll make you particularly attractive to a discriminating young lady."

Hutchinson was much disappointed when he came to the abrupt breaking off of the unfinished letter in the middle of the last page, and failed to find anything in it that would prove that Locke and Hazelton of Princeton were one and the same.

He decided at once to purloin the final page, leaving the others as he had found them. He would relock the desk when he departed from the room, and Locke, missing the final sheet, might fancy that somehow it had slipped from the others and been tossed into the near-by wastebasket, to be carried off by the maid.

In one of the pigeonholes were two letters. Both were addressed on the envelopes to "Mr. Tom Locke." The first one opened contained only the post-card picture of a strikingly pretty young girl, who was laughingly exhibiting some fetching dimples. Across the bottom of the picture was written: "To 'Big Bub,' with love, from 'Tid.'"

A look of understanding drifted across Hutchinson's face as he gazed at the picture, and, returning it to the envelope, he observed:

"So that's how you're 'situated,' Mr. Tom Locke; that's the reason why you are refraining