BINKS was an excellent man, hard-working and sober. He made good money and took it home to his wife for her judgment to settle its fate; every dollar of it. Mrs. Binks was a woman among a thousand. When taken separate and apart from his wife and questioned, Binks said she was a “corker.” Binks declined all attempts at definition, and beyond insisting that Mrs. Binks was and would remain a “corker,” said nothing.

From what was told of Mrs. Binks by herself, it would seem that she was a true, loving wife to Binks, and that, aside from the duty every woman owed to her sex and the establishment of its rights in all avenues of life, she held that with the wedding ring came a list of duties due from a good woman to her husband, which could not be avoided nor gone about.

“Some women,” quoth Mrs. B., “worry their husbands with a detail of small matters. A woman who is to be a helpmeet to her husband, such as I am to Binks, will be self-reliant and decide things for herself. In the little cares of life which fall to her share, let her go forward in her own strength. What is the use of adding her troubles to his? If she has plans, let her execute them. If problems confront her, let her solve them. If she tells her husband aught of the thousand little enterprises of her daily home life, then let it be the result. When success has come to her, she may call her husband to witness the victory. Aside from that she should face her responsibilities alone.”

Of course Mrs. B. did not mean by all this that she would not be open and frank with Binks, and confide in him if a burglar were in the house, or if the roof took fire in the night that she would not arouse Binks and mention it. What she did mean was that when it came to such things as dismissing the servant girl, the wife should gird up her loins and “fire” the maiden singlehanded, and not ring her husband in on a play, manifestly disagreeable, and likely to subject him to great remorse.

It chanced recently that an opportunity opened like a gate for Mrs. B. to illustrate her doctrine that wives should proceed in a plain duty alone, without imposing needless anxiety on the head of the family.

Mrs. Binks had decided to visit her sister in Hoboken. She was to go Thursday, and Binks, who was paid his sweat-bought stipend on Monday, was to furnish the money Monday evening wherewith to make the trip.

It chanced, unfortunately, that pay-day this particular week was deferred. The head partner was sick, or out of town; checks could not be drawn, or something like that.

“But your money will come on Saturday, boys,” said the other partner.

Binks was obliged to wait.

The money was all right; it would be accurately on tap Saturday, so Binks took no fret on that point.

But what was he to do about Mrs. B.? That good woman was to go Thursday, and in order to organise for the descent upon her relative would need the money—$40—on Tuesday. What was Binks to do?

Clearly he must do something. He could not ask Mrs. B. to put off her trip a week; indeed, his reluctance to take such course came almost to the point of superstition.

In his troubles Binks suddenly bethought him of a gold watch, once his father's, with a rich chain and guard attached. These precious heirlooms had been given to Binks by the elder Binks' executor, and were cherished accordingly.

Rather than disappoint Mrs. B. the worthy Binks decided, that just for once in his life he would seek a pawnbroker and do business with that common relative of all.

Binks felt timid and ashamed, but the case was urgent. There was no risk, for his money would float in all right on the tides of Saturday. Binks would then redeem these pledges from disgraceful hock; all would be well. Mrs. B. would be in Hoboken on redemption day, and it would not be necessary to tell her anything about the matter. It would save her pain, and Binks bravely determined to keep the whole transaction dark.

Again, if he told her he had not been paid at the store, the brave woman would indubitably wend to his employer's house and demand the reason why. This would be useless and embarrassing. Therefore, Binks would say nothing. He would pawn the ancestral super, and get it again when his money came in, and his wife was away.

The watch and its appertainments were snug in the far corner of a bureau drawer; away over and behind Mrs. B.'s lingerie. Binks had a watch of his own, a Waterbury, with a mainspring as endless as a chain pump. Mrs. B. saw, therefore, no reason why he should carry the gold watch of his progenitor. Binks might lose it. Mrs. Binks strongly advised that it be kept in the bureau where it would be safe and naturally, in an affair of that sort Binks took his wife's advice.

Binks reflected that he must secure the watch and pawn it that night. To do this he must plot to get Mrs. B. out of the house. Binks thought deeply. At last he had it.

Binks sent a message home in the afternoon and asked Mrs. B. to meet him in a store down town at six o'clock. Then he had himself released at 5:30, and went hotfoot homeward.

The coast was clear; Mrs. B. was down town in deference to his stratagem, no doubt believing that Binks meditated soda water, or some other delicacy, as the cause of his sudden summons of the afternoon. She little wotted that she was the victim of deceit. If she had, there would have been woe.

Binks rushed at once to the bureau and secured the treasure. He did not wait a moment, but plunged off to a store where the three balls over the door bore testimony to the commerce within. Binks would explain to Mrs. B. on his return, how he had missed her and so failed to keep his date with her down town.

The merchant of loans and pledges looked over Binks' timepiece, and then, as Binks requested, gave him a ticket for it and $40. It was to be redeemed in thirty days or sooner. And Binks was to pay $44 to get it again. Binks was very willing. Anything was wiser and better than to permit Mrs. B.'s visit to her sister to be interrupted.

When Binks got home Mrs. B. had already returned.

There was a bad light in her eye. She accepted Binks' excuses and explanations as to “how he missed her down town” with an evil grace. She as good as told Binks that he deceived her; that if the phenomenon were treed she would find another woman in the case.

However, Binks had the presence of mind to turn over the $40 he reaped on the watch; and as he expressed it later:

“That sort of hushed her up.”

The next day Binks returned to his labours, while Mrs. B. repaired to the marts to plunge moderately on what truck she stood in want of for her trip.

When Mrs. B. got back to the house it chanced that the first thing she needed was in the fatal drawer. She opened it.

Horrors! The watch was gone!

There was naught of hesitation; Mrs. B. knew it had been stolen. Anybody could see that from the way every garment had been carefully laid back to hide the loss.

What should she do? The police must at once be notified. Mrs. B. pulled on her shaker and scooted for the police station. She told her story out of breath. She left her house at three o'clock and was back at four o'clock, and in that short hour her home had been entered and looted of its treasures. Made to be specific, Mrs. B. said the treasures were a watch and chain, and described them.

“What were they worth?” asked the sergeant of the detectives.

Mrs. B. considered a bit, and then said they would be dog cheap at $1,000. She reflected that the sum, if published in the papers, would be a source of pride.

The sergeant of detectives told Mrs. B. his men would look about for her property, and should they hear of it or find it they would at once notify her.

“You bet your gum boots! ma'am,” said the sleuth confidently, “whatever crook's got your ticker, he's due to soak it or plant it some'ers in a week. Mebby he'll turn it over to his Moll. But the minute we springs it, ma'am, or turns it up, we'll be dead sure to put you on in a jiff.”

“Thank you,” said Mrs. B.

Then Mrs. Binks went home and, true to her determination to save Binks from unnecessary worry, she told him nothing of the loss nor of her arrangements for the watch's recovery.

“What's the use of bothering Binks?” she asked herself. “All he could do would be to notify the police, and I've done that.”

Thursday came and Mrs. B. set forth for Hoboken. No notice had come from the police. Binks was glad to see her go. He had lived in fear lest she come across the departure of the watch. He breathed easier when she was gone. As for Mrs. B., as she had not heard from the police, there was nothing to tell Binks; wherefore, like a self-reliant woman who did not believe in making her husband unhappy to no purpose, she left without word or sign as to her knowledge of the watch's disappearance.

It was Friday; ever an unlucky day. Binks was walking swiftly homeward. Binks was thinking some idle thing when a hand came down on his shoulder, heavy as a ham.

“Hold on, me covey; I want you!”

Binks looked around, scared and startled. He had been halted by a stocky, bluff man in citizen's clothes.

“What is it?” gasped Binks.

“Suttenly, sech a fly guy as you don't know!” said the bluff man, with a glare. “Well! never mind why I wants you; I'm a detective, and you comes with me.”

And Binks went with him.

Not only that, Binks went in a noisy patrol wagon which the detective rang for; and it kept gonging its way along and attracting everybody's attention.

The word went about among his friends that Binks was drunk and had been fighting.

“And to think a man would act like that,” said one lady, who knew Binks by sight, “just because his wife is away on a visit! If I were his wife I'd never come back to him!”

At the station Binks was solemnly looked over by the chief.

“He's the duck!” said the chief at last. “Exactly old Goldberg's description of the party who spouts the ticker. Where did you collar him, Bill?”

“I sees him paddin' along on Broadway,” replied the bluff man, “and I tumbles to the sucker like a hod of brick. I knowed he was a sneak the first look I gives; and the second I says to meself, 'he's wanted for a watch!' Then I nails him.”

“Do you know who he is?” asked the chief.

“My name,” said Binks, who was recovering from the awful daze that had seized him, “my name is B——”

“Shet up!” roared the bluff man. “Don't give us any guff! It'll be the worse for you!”

“I know the mark,” said an officer looking on.

“His name is 'Windy Joe, the Magsman.' His mug's in the gallery all right enough; number 38, I think.”

“That's correct!” said the chief. “I knowed he was familiar to me, and I never forgets a face. Frisk him, Bill, and lock him up!”

“But my name's Binks!” protested our hero. “I'm an innocent man!”

“That's what they all says,” replied the chief. “Go through him, Bill, and lock him up; I want to go to me grub.”

Binks was cast into a dungeon. Next door to him abode a lunatic, who reviled him all night. On the blotter the ingenuity of the chief detective inscribed: “Windy Joe, the Magsman, alias Binks. Housebreaking in daytime.”

There is scant need of spinning out the agony. Binks got free of the scrape some twelve hours later. But it was all very unfortunate. He came near dismissal at the store, and the neighbours don't understand it yet. They shake their heads and say:

“It's very strange if he's so innocent, why he was locked up. When the police take a man, he's generally done something.”

“I'm not sorry a bit!” said Mrs. B., when she was brought back from Hoboken on Saturday by a wire the police allowed Binks to send her. “And when I saw him with the officers, I was as good a mind to tell them to keep him as ever I had to eat. To think how he deceived me about that watch, allowing me to break my heart with thoughts of it being stolen! I guess the next time Binks sneaks off to pawn his dead father's watch, he'll let me know.”