“How about that man who stole a razor?” asked Tutt.

“Discharged on the ground that the fact that he had a full beard created a reasonable doubt,” replied Doon.  “Honestly there’s nothing doing in my line—­unless you want a tramp case.”

“A tramp case!” exclaimed Tutt & Tutt.

“I suppose you’d call it that,” he answered blandly.  “I don’t think he was a burglar.  Anyhow he’s in the Tombs now, shouting for a lawyer.  I listened to him and made a note of the case.”

Mr. Tutt pushed over the box of stogies and leaned back attentively.

“You know the Hepplewhite house up on Fifth Avenue—­that great stone one with the driveway?”

The Tutts nodded.

“Well, it appears that the prisoner—­our prospective client—­was snooping round looking for something to eat and found that the butler had left the front door slightly ajar.  Filled with a natural curiosity to observe how the other half lived, he thrust his way cautiously in and found himself in the main hall—­hung with tapestry and lined with stands of armor.  No one was to be seen.  Can’t you imagine him standing there in his rags—­the Weary Willy of the comic supplements—­gazing about him at the objets d’art, the old masters, the onyx tables, the statuary—­wondering where the pantry was and whether the housekeeper would be more likely to feed him or kick him out?”

“Weren’t any of the domestics about?” inquired Tutt.

“Not one.  They were all taking an afternoon off, except the third assistant second man who was reading ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ in the servants’ hall.  To resume, our friend was not only very hungry, but very tired.  He had walked all the way from Yonkers, and he needed everything from a Turkish bath to a manicuring.  He had not been shaved for weeks.  His feet sank almost out of sight in the thick nap of the carpets.  It was quiet, warm, peaceful in there.  A sense of relaxation stole over him.  He hated to go away, he says, and he meditated no wrong.  But he wanted to see what it was like upstairs.

“So up he went.  It was like the palace of ‘The Sleeping Beauty.’  Everywhere his eyes were soothed by the sight of hothouse plants, marble floors, priceless rugs, luxurious divans—­”

“Stop!” cried Tutt.  “You are making me sleepy!”

“Well, that’s what it did to him.  He wandered along the upper hall, peeking into the different rooms, until finally he came to a beautiful chamber finished entirely in pink silk.  It had a pink rug—­of silk; the furniture was upholstered in pink silk, the walls were lined with pink silk and in the middle of the room was a great big bed with a pink silk coverlid and a canopy of the same.  It seemed to him that that bed must have been predestined for him.  Without a thought for the morrow he jumped into it, pulled the coverlid over his head and went fast asleep.

“Meanwhile, at tea time Mrs. De Lancy Witherspoon arrived for the week-end.  Bibby, the butler, followed by Stocking, the second man, bearing the hand luggage, escorted the guest to the Bouguereau Room, as the pink-silk chamber is called.”