Two minutes later a rather handsome man, with a fine eye and a long, flowing gray beard, was ushered into my apartment.
"I am Mr. Stikes, of Busybody's, Mr. Jenkins," he said, with a twinkle in his eye. "We thought you might like to contribute to our Christmas issue. We want two sonnets, one on the old Christmas and the other on the new. We can't offer you more than a thousand dollars apiece for them, but—"
Something caught in my throat, but I managed to reply. "I might shade my terms a trifle since you want as many as two," I gurgled. "And I assume you will pay on acceptance?"
"Certainly," he said, gravely. "Could you let me have them, say—this afternoon?"
I turned away so that he would not see the expression of joy on my face, and then there came from behind me a deep chuckle and the observation in a familiar voice:
"You might throw in a couple of those Remsen coolers, too, while you're about it, Jenkins."
I whirled about as if struck, and there, in place of the gray-bearded editor, stood—Raffles Holmes.
"Bully disguise, eh!" he said, folding up his beard and putting it in his pocket.
"Ye-e-es," said I, ruefully, as I thought of the vanished two thousand. "I think I preferred you in disguise, though, old man," I added.
"You won't when you hear what I've come for," said he. "There's $5000 apiece in this job for us."