ou've probably got everything mixed up... It
takes experience to map out a big schedule like that."

"Hilmer showed me what to do," she retorted, calmly.

"Then he's been over here?"

"Yes ... all morning."

He narrowed his eyes. She went on with her typewriting.

"Well, I'll be damned!" escaped him.

His wife replied with a tripping laugh.

At that moment Brauer came in. "I hear you've got the Hilmer line," he
broke out, excitedly. "They say Kendrick is wild... How much did you
have to split?"

"Nothing," Starratt said, coldly.

"Nothing?" Brauer's gaze swept from Starratt to Helen and back again.
"How did you land it, then?"

Helen stood up, thrusting a pencil into her hair.

"I landed it, Mr. Brauer," she said, sweetly, tossing her husband a
commiserating smile.

Brauer's thin lips parted unpleasantly. "I told you at the start,
Starratt, that a good stenographer would work wonders."

Fred forced a sickly laugh. He wished that Helen Starratt had stayed
at home where she belonged.

It had been a long time since the insurance world on California Street
had been given such a chance for gossip as the shifting of the Hilmer
insurance provided. Naturally, business changes took place every day,
but it was unusual to have such a rank beginner at the brokerage game
put over so neat a trick. Speculation was rife. Some said that Hilmer
was backing the entire Starratt venture, that he, in fact, was
Starratt & Co., with Fred merely a salaried man, allowing his name to
be used. Others conceded a partnership arrangement. But Kendrick
announced in a loud tone up and down the street:

"Partnership nothing! I know Hilmer. He's got too many irons in the
fire now. He wouldn't be annoyed with the insurance game. This fellow
Starratt is rebating--that's what he is!"

Of course the street laughed. Kendrick's indignation was quite too
comic, considering his own reputation. To this argument, those who
held to the proprietor and partnership theories replied:

"That may all be, but he wastes an awful lot of time in Starratt's
office for a fellow who's so rushed with his other ventures."

It was at this point that a few people raised their eyebrows
significantly as they said:

"Well, the old boy always did have a pretty keen eye for a skirt."

It was impossible for Fred Starratt to move anywhere without hearing
fragments of all this gossip. During the noon hour particularly it
filtered through the midday tattle of busin