As she spoke the last words she walked hastily away.

Bob Hardy stared after her stupidly, but did not attempt to follow her.

“Well, what did she say?” asked a voice at his elbow.

A well-dressed man of middle age had walked slowly across the street and stood waiting impatiently for Hardy’s answer.

The detective drew a long breath and shrugged his shoulders a little.

“Oh, she’s a high flyer,” he answered, cautiously.  “It will take time to clip her wings and tame her, captain, but don’t you worry a bit.  I’ll earn your fifty dollars.”

“As you have earned several other fifties,” said the “captain,” smiling.  “Oh, well, you are in the right place for just such work.  It’s dead easy for you, Hardy.  Why, those girls would all of them jump at the chance of getting out from behind those counters, but the deuce of it is that it’s only the new ones who are pretty.”

“Well, you’ve picked out the prettiest now, all right,” laughed Hardy.  “But I expect I shall have to scare her a little.  She’s not only proud as Lucifer, but she’s chock full of religion.  Says God will protect her and all that sort of thing.”

The well-dressed “captain” threw back his head and roared.

“God will trouble Himself a lot about her, I’m thinking,” he said, chuckling.  “He is so given to looking after those half-starved creatures!  Why, the Devil is the shop girls’ best friend, if they only knew it.”

“He stands by us pretty well, too, eh! captain?” said Hardy.  “But I must be getting home, as I live way over in Jersey.  I’ll report to-morrow night at your place downtown.  She’ll be less religious by that time if she sees that God has gone back on her, I guess.”

“You mean that you will press the charge against her and have them send her to jail?  That’s going pretty far, Hardy; but I’ll leave it to your judgment.”

“Oh, pshaw!  She’ll be tractable before it comes to that pass, captain.  I’ve seen girls before.  I know how to handle ’em.”

The two men parted, Hardy going to his home in Jersey, while the man whom he had called “captain” went in the direction of Fifth avenue.

When he arrived at his magnificent bachelor apartments he let himself in with a latch-key.  His colored valet was busy in one of the rooms packing his master’s clothing into two traveling bags.

“Well, Dave,” said the captain, gayly, “we will have a fine trip South, I fancy; but don’t hurry with that packing.  Let it go for a day.  I’ve decided not to start as soon as I intended.”

“All right, sah; I’ll drop it right quick, sah,” said the negro.  “Yere’s a letter, sah, dat was brung ’bout an hour ago.  I dun tole de boy dat you would anser it at your leesyur, sah.”

Captain Paul Deering laughed at his servant’s language.  Dave always used big words and the most extravagant manners when he came in contact with other people’s servants.