"Have you looked through the firm's mail?" said Fitz, glad of the respite.
"Eve'ywhere, suh—not a scrap."
"I will hunt him up;" and Fitz hurried down to Klutchem's office in the hope of either intercepting the challenge or of pacifying the object of the colonel's wrath, if by any good chance the letter should have been delayed until the morning.
In ten minutes he returned with the mystifying news that Mr. Klutchem's letters had been sent to his apartment the night before, and that a telegram had just been received notifying his clerks that he would not be down that day.
"Escaped, suh, has he? Run like a dog! Like a yaller dog as he is!
Where has he gone?"
"After a policeman, I guess," said Fitz.
The colonel stopped, and an expression of profound contempt overspread his face.
"If the gentleman has fallen so low, suh, that he proposes to go about with a constable taggin' after his heels, you can tell him, suh, that he is safe even from my boot."
Then he shut the door of the private office in undisguised disgust, leaving Fitz and me on the outside.
"What are we going to do, Major?" said Fitz, now really anxious. "I am positive that old Klutchem has either left town or is at this moment at police headquarters. If so, the dear old fellow will be locked up before sundown. Klutchem got that letter last night."