"joker" down.

I got Saxe--then senior partner in Browne, Saxe and Einstein--on the
'phone, and said: "Just see and tell me, will you, what is the 'bill
defining the power of sundry commissions'--the bill the governor signed
yesterday?"

"Certainly, Mr. Blacklock," came the answer. My nerves are, and always have
been, on the watchout for the looks and the tones and the gestures that are
just a shade off the natural; and I feel that I do Saxe no injustice when I
say his tone was, not a shade, but a full color, off the natural. So I was
prepared for what he said when he returned to the telephone. "I'm sorry,
Mr. Blacklock, but we seem unable to lay our hands on that bill at this
moment."

"Why not?" said I, in the tone that makes an employee jump as if a
whip-lash had cut him on the calves.

He had jumped all right, as his voice showed. "It's not in our file," said
he. "It's House Bill No. 427, and it's apparently not here."

"The hell you say!" I exclaimed. "Why?"

"I really can't explain," he pleaded, and the frightened whine confirmed my
suspicion.

"I guess not," said I, making the words significant and suggestive. "And
you're in my pay to look after such matters! But you'll have to explain, if
this turns out to be serious."

"Apparently our file of bills is complete except that one," he went on. "I
suppose it was lost in the mail, and I very stupidly didn't notice the gap
in the numbers."

"Stupid isn't the word I'd use," said I, with a laugh that wasn't of the
kind that cheers. And I rang off and asked for the state capitol on the
"long distance."

Before I got my connection Saxe, whose office was only two blocks away,
came flustering in. "The boy has been discharged, Mr. Blacklock," he began.

"What boy?" said I.

"The boy in charge of the bill file--the boy whose business it was to keep
the file complete."

"Send him to me, you damned scoundrel," said I. "I'll give him a job. What
do you take me for, anyway? And what kind of a cowardly hound are you to
disgrace an innocent boy as a cover for your own crooked work?"

"Really, Mr. Blacklock, this is most extraordinary," he expostulated.

"Extraordinary? I call it criminal," I retorted. "Listen to me. You look
after the legislation calendars for me, and for Langdon, and for Roebuck,
and for Melville, and for half a dozen others of the biggest financiers in
the country. It's the most important work you do for us. Yet you, as shrewd
and careful a l