But the immediate business on his hands was to go and see what man it was who wished to see him.  Ordinarily the fact that a man had called upon him would not be considered by Lawrence a matter for cogitation, but as he walked toward the house it seemed to him very odd that any one should call upon him in such an out-of-the-way place as this, where so few people knew him to be.  He was not a business man, but a large portion of his funds were invested in a business concern, and it might be that something had gone wrong, and that a message had been sent him.  His address at the Green Sulphur Springs was known, and the man in charge there knew that he was visiting Mrs Keswick.

These considerations made him a little anxious, and helped to keep his mind in the hubbub which has been mentioned.

When he reached the front of the house, Lawrence saw a lean, gray horse tied to a tree, and a man sitting upon the porch; and as soon as he made his appearance the latter came down the steps to meet him.

“I didn’t go into the house, sir,” he said, “because I thought you’d just as lief have a talk outside.”

“What is your business?” asked Croft.

The man moved a few steps farther from the house, and Lawrence followed him.

“Is it anything secret you have to tell me?” he asked.

“Well, yes, sir, I should think it was,” replied the other, a tall man, with sandy hair and beard, and dressed in a checkered business suit, which had lost a good deal of the freshness of its early youth.  “I may as well tell you at once who I am.  I am an anti-detective.  Never heard of that sort of person, I suppose?”

“Never,” said Lawrence, curtly.

“Well, sir, the organization which I belong to is one which is filling a long felt want.  You know very well, sir, that this country is full of detective officers, not only those who belong to a regular police force, but lots of private ones, who, if anybody will pay them for it, will go to Jericho to hunt a man up.  Now, sir, our object is to protect society against these people.  When we get information that a man is going to be hounded down by any of these detectives—­and we have private ways of knowing these things—­we just go to that man, and if he is willing to become one of our clients, we take him into our charge; and our business, after that, is to keep him informed of just what is being done against him.  He can stay at home in comfort with his wife, settle up his accounts, and do what he likes, and the day before he is to be swooped down on, he gets notice from us, and comfortably goes to Chicago, or Jacksonville, where he can take his ease until we post him of the next move of the enemy.  If he wants to take extra precautions, and writes a letter to anybody in the place where he lives, dated from London or Hong Kong, and sends that letter under cover to us, we’ll see that it is mailed from the place it is dated from, and that it gets into the