wouldn't be shattered by anything but the middle C note of a B-flat
trombone?"

The man sat down weakly and bowed his face in his hands. Presently
he looked up.

"I don't care," he said. "Come inside."

At the end of an hour's talk Arbuthnot, alias Ransom, agreed to
everything that Average Jones proposed.

"Mind you," he said, "I don't promise I won't kill him later. But
meantime it'll be some satisfaction to put him down and out
politically. You can find me here any time you want me. You say
you'll see Linder to-morrow?"

"To-morrow," said Average Jones. "'Look in the next day's papers
for the result."

Setting his telephone receiver down the Honorable William Linder
lost himself in conjecture. He had just given an appointment to his
tried and true, but quite impersonal enemy, Mr. Horace Waldemar.

"What can Waldemar want of me?" ran his thoughts. "And who is this
friend, Jones, that he's bringing? Jones? Jones! Jones?!" He
tried it in three different accents, without extracting any
particular meaning therefrom. "Nothing much in the political game,"
he decided.

It was with a mingling of gruffness and dignity that he greeted Mr.