“I can’t pant you,” said Philo Gubb, “but I can overall you.”
The late Tasmanian Wild Man was most grateful. When he was dressed in the overalls and had wiped the grease-paint from his face on an old rag, no one would have recognized him.
“And as for thanks,” said Philo Gubb, “don’t mention it. A deteckative gent is obliged to keep up a set of disguises hitherto unsuspected by the mortal world. This Tasmanian Wild Man outfit will do for a hermit disguise. So you don’t owe me no thanks.”
As Philo Gubb watched Waldo Emerson Snooks start in the direction of Boston—only some thirteen hundred miles away—he had no idea how soon he would have occasion to use the Tasmanian Wild Man disguise, but hardly had the Wild Man departed than a small boy came to summon Mr. Gubb, and it was with a sense of elation and importance that he appeared before the meeting of the Riverbank Ladies’ Social Service League.
“And so,” said Mrs. Garthwaite, at the close of the interview, “you understand us, Mr. Gubb?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Philo Gubb. “What you want me to do, is to find Mr. Winterberry, ain’t it?”
“Exactly,” agreed Mrs. Garthwaite.
“And, when found,” said Mr. Gubb, “the said stolen goods is to be returned to you?”
“Just so.”
“And the fiends in human form that stole him are to be given the full limit of the law?”