. Nan did not look at him as she
quietly freed herself. She ignored the act, though her cheek flushed
scarlet. She minimized the incident by shaking down her bracelet.

"Half of that is yours," she said. "I will deposit it to-morrow and give
you my check. You ought to have made the contract in your own name, but
I never thought they would take it--much less that it would sell, or I
should have insisted in the beginning."

"Well, I had faith in your three quarters of the work; mine is the
poorest part of it."

"Your half made it possible,--the form and the planning. I never could
have done a long-sustained thing like that; I'm a paragrapher, that's
all."

"You're a humorist of a high order," he said warmly. "It's the huge
joke of the thing that is making people like it. Let me see, the
publisher is advertising a quotation from some paper that has called it
the funniest book in ten years."

"That's a stock phrase of the critics," said Nan; "they merely change
the title of the book from year to year. But it's been fun doing a book
that way and putting it out anonymously. Judge Walters spoke to me of it
yesterday; said he had stayed up all night to finish it."

"It's going to take more ingenuity than I possess to hide the
authorship; that's why I want you to carry the burden. The publisher
says the public demand to know who Merlin Shepperd is. And three
magazines want a short story by the author of 'The Gray Knight of
Picardy.' I'll send you the letters. That enterprising Phil has an
uncomfortable habit of running through my desk and I'm likely to forget
to lock up these things. She thought I was working on a brief all last
winter when I was doing my part of the 'Gray Knight.' But I turn the
partnership over to you now--with all the assets and liabilities and the
firm name and style. You are Merlin Shepperd and I am Kirkwood, attorney
and counselor at law, over Bernstein's. You see," he added, smiling,
"your lecture led right up to that. No more literary ventures for me!"

"Well, I'd forgotten the 'Gray Knight' for the moment; but in spite of
him I believe you had better stick to the law."

"There's this, Nan," he said earnestly, looking at her with an
intentness that caused her to move uneasily; "it would seem quite
natural for a partnership like this to be extended further. This world
would be a pretty bleak place without you. You know and understand that.
And there is Phil; Phil needs you just as I do. I mean to