Mr. Dimmidge’s eyes brightened.  “I’ll take that, too.  It’s a little dark-complected for Mrs. P., but it will do.  Now roon away, lad,” he said to the foreman, as he quietly pushed him into the outer office again and closed the door.  Then, facing the surprised editor, he said, “Theer’s another notiss I want ye to put in your paper; but that’s atween us.  Not a word to them,” he indicated the banished foreman with a jerk of his thumb.  “Sabe?  I want you to put this in another part o’ your paper, quite innocent-like, ye know.”  He drew from his pocket a gray wallet, and taking out a slip of paper read from it gravely, “’If this should meet the eye of R. B., look out for M. J. D. He is on your track.  When this you see write a line to E. J. D., Elktown Post Office.’  I want this to go in as ’Personal and Private’—­sabe?—­like them notisses in the big ’Frisco papers.”

“I see,” said the editor, laying it aside.  “It shall go in the same issue in another column.”

Apparently Mr. Dimmidge expected something more than this reply, for after a moment’s hesitation he said with an odd smile: 

“Ye ain’t seein’ the meanin’ o’ that, lad?”

“No,” said the editor lightly; “but I suppose R. B. does, and it isn’t intended that any one else should.”

“Mebbe it is, and mebbe it isn’t,” said Mr. Dimmidge, with a self-satisfied air.  “I don’t mind saying atween us that R. B. is the man as I’ve suspicioned as havin’ something to do with my wife goin’ away; and ye see, if he writes to E. J. D.—­that’s my wife’s initials—­at Elktown, I’ll get that letter and so make sure.”

“But suppose your wife goes there first, or sends?”

“Then I’ll ketch her or her messenger.  Ye see?”

The editor did not see fit to oppose any argument to this phenomenal simplicity, and Mr. Dimmidge, after settling his bill with the foreman, and enjoining the editor to the strictest secrecy regarding the origin of the “personal notice,” took up his gun and departed, leaving the treasury of the “Clarion” unprecedentedly enriched, and the editor to his proofs.

The paper duly appeared the next morning with the column advertisement, the personal notice, and the weighty editorial on the wagon road.  There was a singular demand for the paper, the edition was speedily exhausted, and the editor was proportionately flattered, although he was surprised to receive neither praise nor criticism from his subscribers.  Before evening, however, he learned to his astonishment that the excitement was caused by the column advertisement.  Nobody knew Mr. Dimmidge, nor his domestic infelicities, and the editor and foreman, being equally in the dark, took refuge in a mysterious and impressive evasion of all inquiry.  Never since the last San Francisco Vigilance Committee had the office been so besieged.  The editor, foreman, and even the apprentice, were buttonholed and “treated” at the bar, but