give me the benefit, in the announcement, of bad health caused by
the shock of the explosion, to explain my quitting, Waldemar?"

"It will certainly make it more plausible," assented the newspaper
owner with a smile.

Linder turned on Average Jones.

"Did you dope this out, young fellow?" he demanded.

"Yes."

"Well, you've put me in the Down-and-Out-Club, all right. And I'm
just curious enough to want to know how you did it."

"By abstaining," returned Average Jones cryptically, "from the best
wine that ever came out of the Cosmic Club cellar."




CHAPTER II

RED DOT


From his inner sanctum, Average Jones stared obliquely out upon the
whirl of Fifth Avenue, warming itself under a late March sun.

In the outer offices a line of anxious applicants was being disposed