iously undermined. We'll give you a good
recommendation and a month's salary... But you had better leave at
once. A man in your frame of mind isn't a good investment for Ford,
Wetherbee & Co."

Starratt was still quivering with unleashed heroics. "The
recommendation is coming to me," he returned, coldly. "The month's
salary isn't. I'll take what I've earned and not a penny more."

"Very well; suit yourself there."

Mr. Ford reached for his pen and began where he had left off at
Starratt's entrance ... signing insurance policies... Starratt rose
and left without a word. The interview was over.

Already, in that mysterious way with which secrets flash through an
office with lightninglike rapidity, a hint of Starratt's brush with
Ford was illuminating the dull routine.

"I think he's going into business for himself, or something," Starratt
heard the chief stenographer say in a stage whisper to her assistant,
as he passed.

And at his desk he found Brauer waiting to waylay him with a bid for
lunch, his little ferret eyes attempting to confirm the general gossip
flying about.

Starratt had an impulse to refuse, but instead he said, as evenly as
he could:

"All right ... sure! Let's go now!"

Brauer felt like eating oysters, so they decided to go up to one of
the stalls in the California Market for lunch. He was in an expansive
mood.

"Let's have beer, too," he insisted, as they seated themselves. "After
the first of July they'll slap on war-time prohibition and it won't be
so easy."

Starratt acquiesced. He usually didn't drink anything stronger than
tea with the noonday meal, because anything even mildly alcoholic made
him loggy and unfit for work, but the thought that to-day he was free
intrigued him.

The waiter brought the usual plate of shrimps that it was customary to
serve with an oyster order, and Starratt and Brauer fell to. A glass
of beer foamed with enticing amber coolness before each plate. Brauer
reached over and lifted his glass.

"Well, here's success to crime!" he said, with pointed facetiousness.

Starratt ignored the lead. He had never liked Brauer and he did not
find this sharp-nosed inquisitiveness to his taste. He began to wonder
why he had come with him. Lunching with Brauer had never been a habit.
Occasionally, quite by accident, they managed to achieve the same
restaurant and the same table, but it was not a matter of
prearrangement. Indeed, Starratt had always prided himself at h