very much interested in his story," said Queed, which
was certainly true enough. "Where do people think that he is now?"

"Oh, in the West somewhere, living like a fat hog off Miss Weyland's
money."

Queed's heart lost a beat. An instinct, swift as a reflex, turned him
to the window again; he feared that his face might commit treason. A
curious contraction and hardening seemed to be going on inside of him, a
chilling petrifaction, and this sensation remained; but in the next
instant he felt himself under perfect control, and was calmly saying:--

"Why, I thought the courts took all the money he had."

"They took all they could find. If you've studied high finance you'll
appreciate the distinction." Amiably West tapped the table-top with the
long point of his pencil, and wished that Queed would restore him his
privacy. "Everybody thought at the time, you know, that he had a hundred
thousand or so put away where the courts never got hold of it. The
general impression was that he'd somehow smuggled it over to the woman
he'd been living with--his wife", he said. "She died, I believe, but
probably our friend Surface, when he got out, hadn't the slightest
trouble in putting his hands on the money."

"No, I suppose not. An interesting story, isn't it? You'll telephone if
you need anything to-night?"

"Oh, I shan't need anything. The page is shaping up very satisfactorily,
I think. Good-night, my dear fellow."

Left alone, West picked up Queed's closely-written sheets, and leaning
back in his chair read them with the closest attention. Involuntarily,
his intellect paid a tribute to the writer as he read. The article was
masterly. The argument was close and swift, the language impassioned,
the style piquant. "Where did he learn to write like that!" wondered
West. Here was the whole subject compressed into half a column, and so
luminous a half column that the dullest could not fail to understand and
admire. Two sarcastic little paragraphs were devoted to stripping the
tatters from the nakedness of the economy argument, and these Mr.
Queed's chief perused twice.

"The talk of a doctrinaire," mused he presently. "The closet
philosopher's ideas. How far afield from the real situation ..."

It was a most fortunate thing, he reflected, that he himself had means
of getting exact and accurate information at first hand. Suppose that he
had not, that, like some editors, he had simply passed this article in
without examination a