couldn't hide where your yellow Huns wouldn't come to him on
their knees!"

"Let him do it, then,--go's far as he likes. Only don't ask _me_ ..."

O'Neill had not failed to perceive how the talk wandered from the Labor
Commission. Now, drawing on his gloves, he was struck by a
humorous thought.

"You're looking for work, for trouble, you say. Why don't you sign on
this John the Baptist job yourself?"

Oddly, the small gibe seemed to disconcert the orator. His cheek
acquired a pinkness; unexpectedly, too, he seemed to lose the thread of
his headlong thesis. However, he brandished his arms, gazing hard.

"That's as it may be! As it may be, my dear fellow! All I ... Ah," he
said hurriedly, turning. "One minute.... There's some one knocking...."

And he went striding off with his unequal step toward his visitors'
door--not his sick's--though it did seem that "Come in" would really
have answered just as well as usual....

The stoutish Commissioner glanced after him, dimly surprised.

Boyhood friends these two, their ways had long parted while the younger
followed away the descending fortunes of his father, the inventor of a
double-turbine which would never quite work. Their reëstablished
intimacy now was of the thorough-going sort: witness Sam's letting him
trot along on factory inspection the other day, something he'd have done