half way across the hall. The tobacco jar must have gone too,
had not one of Gavin's outflung hands caught it in mid-air, as
a quarterback might catch a football.

Unable to recover balance and to check his own momentum.
Brice scrambled awkwardly forward. One stamping heel landed
full on the fallen meerschaum, flattening and crumbling the
beautiful pipe into a smear of shapeless clay-fragments.

At the sight. Milo Standish swore loudly and came charging
forward in a belated hope of saving his beloved pipe from
destruction. The purchase of that meerschaum had been a joy
to Milo. Its coloring had been a long and careful process.
And now, this bungler had smashed it into nothingness!

Down on hands and knees went the big man, fumbling at the
fragments. Claire, knowing how her brother valued the pipe,
ran to his side in eager sympathy.

Gavin Brice came to a sliding standstill against a heavy
hall-table. On this he leaned heavily for a moment or so
above the tobacco jar he had so luckily salvaged from the
wreckage. His back to the preoccupied couple he flashed his
sensitive fingers into the jar, collecting and thrusting into
his pockets the watch and the thick roll of bills and as much
of the small change as his fast-groping fingertips could
locate.

By the time Milo looked up in impotent wrath from his
inspection of the ruined meerschaum. Gavin had turned toward