"I can charge his keep under the head of 'information paid for.' I shall
sign the voucher without a qualm."

"You'd get blood out of a stone, Jim! Go on, tell us!"

"I'm hired to keep secrets as well as discover them," Grim answered,
smiling broadly.

"Of course you are," she retorted. "But I know all Roger's secrets, and
he's a doctor, mind you! Am I right, Roger? Come along! There are no
servants--no eavesdroppers. Wait. I'll put tea on the table, and then
we'll all listen."

She made tea Australian fashion in a billy, which is quick and simple,
but causes alleged dyspepsia cures to sell well all the way from
Adelaide to the Gulf of Carpentraia.

"You'll have to tell her, Jim," said Jeremy.

"Mabel's safe as an iron roof," put in her husband. "Noisy in the rain,
but doesn't leak."

But neither man nor woman could have extracted a story from James
Schuyler Grim unless it suited him to tell it. Mabel Ticknor is one of
those honest little women who carry men's secrets with them up and down
the world. Being confided in by nearly every man who met her was a
habit. But Grim tells only when the telling may accomplish something,
and I wondered, as he laid his elbow on the table to begin, just what
use he meant to make of Mabel Ticknor. He uses what he knows as other
level-headed men use coin, spending thriftily for fair advantage.