Crawford
dropped in on us himself and told us about you. Have a chair."

They had shaken hands across the table. Now, as Conniston moved across
the room to the chair at which Garton waved, the latter swung about on
his high stool toward the boy at the typewriter.

"Hey there, Billy!" he called. "Come and meet Mr. Conniston. He's
going to be one of us. Mr. Conniston, meet Mr. Jordan--Billy
Jordan--the one man living who can take down dictation as fast as you
can sling it at him, type it as you shoot it in, and play a tune on
his typewriter at the same time!"

Stepping about the table to meet the boy who had got to his feet,
Conniston received a shock which for a second made him forget to take
young Jordan's proffered hand. For the first time now he saw Garton's
body, which had been hidden by the table; saw that Garton had had both
legs taken off six inches above the knees. He remembered himself, and
tried to hide his surprise under some light remark to Billy Jordan.
But Garton had seen it, and laughed lightly, although with a slight
flush creeping up into his pale cheeks.

"Hadn't heard about my having slept with Procrustes? Well, you'll get
used to having half a man around after a while. The rest do. I've
gotten used to it myself. Now sit down. Have a smoke?" He pushed a box
of cigarettes along the table. "And tell us what's the news on
Broadway."

"You're a New-Yorker?"

"Oh, I've galloped up and down the Big Thoroughfare a good many times
in the days of my youth," grinned Carton, helping himself to a
cigarette. "I'm an Easterner, all right; or, rather, I was an
Easterner. I guess I belong to this man's country now."

"What school?"

"Yale. '05."

"Why, that's my school! I was a '06 man."

"I know it." Garton nodded over the match he was touching to his
cigarette. "You're Greek Conniston, son of the big Conniston who does
things on the Street. But we didn't happen to travel in the same
class. I was shy on the money end of it. Oh, I remember you, all
right. I saw that record run of yours around left end to a touchdown.
Gad, that was a great day! I went crazy then with a thousand other
fellows. I remember," with an amused chuckle, "jumping up and down on
a fat man's toes, yelling into his face until I must have split his
ear-drum! Oh yes, I had two pegs in those days. The fat man got mad,
the piker, and knocked me as flat as a pancake! I guess he never went
to Yale."

For ten minutes they chatted about o