"No lark at all," answered Bart--"strictly business. Don't take a minute. No need disturbing the folks. You can be back inside of an hour."

Bob, hatless and without a collar, came sliding down the lightning rod two minutes later. Darry landed on the ground almost simultaneously, simply letting himself drop from the window sill.

"Two dollars apiece for half an hour's work," said Bart, and then told his companions the details of the special mission in which he required their services.

"Ginger! but you're nerve and action," commented the admiring Bob.

"And good to your friends," put in Darry.

They pa.s.sed the pickle factory. It stood on the edge of the town, and the residence of the senior partner of Martin & Company, whose name had been mentioned in the telegram, was nearly half a mile further away.

"Eleven thirty-five," announced Bart, a trifle anxiously. "It does not give us much time. I hope there's no slip anywhere."

At just fifteen minutes of midnight the strange trio pa.s.sed up the graveled walk leading to the Martin mansion. The front door had a ponderous old-fashioned knocker, and Bart plied it without ceremony.

He began to grow nervous as three minutes pa.s.sed by, and not the least attention was paid to his summons.

Suddenly an upper window was thrust up, and a man's head came into view.

"Who's there?" demanded a gruff, impatient voice.

"Is this Mr. Martin, Mr. A.B. Martin?" inquired Bart.

"Yes, it is--what do you want?"

"I have an express package for you," explained Bart.

"Oh, you have?" snapped Mr. Martin. "What the mischief do you mean waking a man up at midnight on a thing like that! Deliver it at the factory in the morning."

The speaker, muttering direfully under his breath, was about to slam down the window.

"Wait one moment, Mr. Martin," called up Bart sharply. "This is a special delivery, and a very important matter. I tender you this package in the presence of these witnesses, and it is a legal delivery. If you decline to come down and take it, and I leave it on your doorstep at the call of the first tramp who happens to come along, I have done my duty, and the loss is yours--a matter of fifteen thousand dollars."

"What! what!" shouted Martin.

"That is the amount."

"From--Dunn & Son?"

"I guess that's right," said Bart. "Will you come down and take it?"

Martin did not reply. He disappeared from the window, but left it open.

Bart heard him muttering to himself.

"Supposing he doesn't come down?" questioned Bob, in a whisper.

"I think he will," said Bart. "Eleven forty-eight. Mr. Martin," he called out loudly, "I can't wait here all night."

"Shut up!" retorted an angry voice--"I'm hurrying all I can."

"He isn't!" spoke Darry, in a low tone to Bart. "He's on to the business, and playing for time."

"And he's beat us!" breathed Bob--"hear there! twelve o'clock. Your delivery is no good, Bart! It's just struck a new day!"

"S--sh!" warned Bart, as a clock inside the house rang out twelve silvery strokes. "The clock is wrong. We've got five minutes and a half yet."

In about two minutes a light flashed in the hall, the front door was unlocked, and Martin appeared, half-dressed. Bart relievedly put up his watch. It was just three minutes of twelve.

He instantly placed the express envelope in Martin's hands, slipping into the vestibule.

"Mr. Martin," he said, "it is necessary for you to verify the contents of this package. An accident happened to it, as you see."

Martin tore the envelope clear open, and glanced over fifteen bills of one thousand dollar denomination each.

"All right," he said gruffly.

"Will you sign this receipt?" asked Bart politely, tendering the slip of paper he had prepared at the office for this especial occasion. "Thank you," he added, as the pickle man scrawled a penciled signature at the bottom of the paper.

"I take this money," said Mr. Martin, looking up with a peculiar expression on his face, "because it is delivered by you, but I shall return it to Dunn & Son to-morrow."

"That is your business, Mr. Martin," said Bart politely.

"It is, and--something more! I call on you and your witnesses to notice that the fifteen thousand dollars was not delivered to me until six minutes after twelve, too late to make the tender legal, which makes the contract null and void."

Mr. Martin, with a triumphant sweep of his hand, pointed to a big clock at the end of the long hall.

"I beg your pardon," said Bart, holding up his watch, "but I keep official time, and it is exactly thirty seconds to midnight. Listen!"

And thirty seconds later, from the Pleasantville court house tower, the town bell rang out twelve musical strokes.

CHAPTER XXIX

BROUGHT TO TIME

"I'll go!" said Colonel Jeptha Harrington, magnate of Pleasantville.

"All right," said Bart Stirling, express company agent.

It was three o'clock in the morning, and the scene was the little express office where so many unusual and exciting happenings had transpired within twenty-four hours.

The colonel's announcement was given in the tone of a man facing a hard proposition and forced to accept it--or something worse.

Bart's reply was calm and off-handed. During a two hours' siege with the military man he had never lost his temper or his wits, and had come off the victor.

When Bart had concluded his very creditable piece of business with Mr.