Marion Marlowe's Skill, or, A Week as a Private Detective — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

i4 ihe clerk wrote out his check for a dollar and a half; then, with a wonderfully quick motion of his hands, he removed the tag and attached it to a tie that was much more ex- pensive, and which had borne ne tag origi- nally. As before, the goods were wrapped without the packer discovering the fraud, for in each case they were nothing but young boys, who looked no further than the figures on the goods handed them. The other clerks at the counter were all too busy to notice, and, indeed, the whole thing had been done so quickly that even Marion, who had seen it, almost doubted her own senses ! This time she was unable to get the fel- low’s number, as another clerk was waiting upon her, but she scrutinized him closely, so as to be able to identify him. Again it occurred to her to try and save this man’s position, and again came the thought that he was utterly unworthy. “And to think of the hundreds of honest young men and women who are- without work,” she thought as she left the building. “Oh, 1 did not dream that such work as this was before me!” Sut the young girl did not shrink from her disagreeable task. These people were dis- lonest, and it was her duty to punish them. She would have stayed in the store longer, but the shabbily-dressed woman had left it, and it had occurred to Marion that perhaps it would be wise to follow her. It was the first bit of “shadowing” that she had ever done, but she did it cleverly, always keeping far enough away so that the woman would never suspect what she was doing, At the very next store they came to the woman stopped, standing for several minutes and_staring in at the windows. Viarion was just across the way, also gaz- MY QUEEN. 7 - ing in at a window, but turning every other minute in the woman’s direction. Suddenly a coarse, flashily-dressed man walked by on the woman’s side of the street, and as he passed the woman he nodded to her familiarly. , “Terence ‘O’Connell, I do believe!” said Marion, almost aloud. “It is his figure ex- actly, but where are his whiskers 2” She stared at the man until she was sure that she was not mistaken. It was surely the poor beggar who had called on her the night before, but now he was well dressed, and a diamond shone in his shirt front, and as she had noticed at first, he was minus his whiskers. “Well, of all strange things!” thought the astonished girl. “To think that I should know him the minute I saw him. Why, I am be- ginning to think that I am a born detective.” She started slowly across the street, and then quickened her steps a little. * The woman had suddenly entered the store, and she was anxious to keep in sight of her. She darted over the crossing and into the store, but the woman had disappeared. could not find her. As Marion hurried through the aisles, looking sharply about her, she came upon a large group of shoppers crowding about a small “bargain”? counter. Suddenly there was a shriek from one ‘of the eager shoppers. She began screaming lustily that her pocket-book had been stolen. Marion stepped back to one side, where she could see what happened, and as the other shoppers in the store heard the woman’s shrieks they all came rushing in that diree- tion. “T tell you I felt some one’s hand in m» pocket!” screamed the woman, hysterically, “T grabbed as quick as I could, but she had eot it, the miserable creature !” She | A Gomichbooks (E(0)