"Ay, ay, lad, that's about it. Some of these here land-sharks had trimmed me from top-gallant mast to bilge keel. They cleaned me out and left me high and dry. So when I see that 'ad' I says to myself, says, I, there's just the thing for me."
"Say, Ben," exclaimed Billy, suddenly, "Let me have a look at that 'ad' again, will you?"
"Sure," said the old adventurer, handing him the clipping from which he had taken the address, "here you are."
"Why!" exclaimed Billy suddenly, "L. B. are the initials of Luther
Barr."
"What! that old cat-a-mount?" cried Ben, "is he still alive?"
"He certainty is and up to fresh mischief," was the rejoinder. "Of course there are lots of L. B.'s in Boston, but coupled with a conversation I overheard, it looks to me as if the man who inserted this 'ad' is Barr himself."
"What makes you think so, youngster?"
Billy launched into a narration of what he had overheard on the steamer after his rescue.
"Ph-e-e-w!" whistled Ben, as the young reporter concluded, "so the old varmint is up to his tricks again, is he? Well now, sonny, if this L. B. in the 'ad' should be the same as Luther Barr, it won't do no harm for me to be along with him. But first, I'll get my whiskers shaved off and that will make me look a heap different. Then I'll dress in a different rig and he won't know me any more than I'd know the old clipper North Star after they turned her into a coal barge."
"You really mean that, Ben?"