r in a big automobile. 'Your master at once,' he says, and shoves
the letter into my hand, and was off."

"Very good, Jason," said Jimmie Dale. "You may go."

The door closed. Yes, it was from HER--it was the same texture of paper,
there was the same rare, haunting fragrance clinging to it.

He tore the envelope open, and extracted a folded sheet of paper. What
was it this time? To call the partnership off again until the present
furor should have subsided once more--or the skilfully sketched outline
of a new adventure? Which? He glanced at the few lines written on the
sheet, and lunged forward from his chair to his feet. It was neither one
nor the other. It was--

Jimmie Dale's face was set, and an angry red surge swept his cheeks. His
lips moved, muttering audibly fragments of the letter, as he stared at
it.

"--incredible that you--a heinous thing--act instantly--this is ruin--"

For an instant--a rare occurrence in Jimmie Dale's life--he stood like a
man stricken, still staring at the sheet in his hand. Then mechanically
his fingers tore the paper into little pieces, and the little pieces
into tiny shreds. Anger fled, and a sickening sense of impotent dismay
took its place; the red left his cheeks, and in its stead a grayness
came.

"Act instantly!" The words seemed to leap at him, drum at his ears with
constant repetition. Act instantly! But how? How? Then his brain--that
keen, clear, master brain--sprang from stunned inaction into virility
again. Of course--Carruthers! It was in Carruthers' line.

He stepped to the desk--and paused with his hand extended to pick up the
telephone. How explain to Carruthers that he, Jimmie Dale, already knew
what Carruthers might not yet have heard of, even though Carruthers
would naturally be among the first to be in touch with such affairs! No;
that would never do. Better get there himself at once and trust to--

The telephone rang.

Jimmie Dale waited until it rang again, then he lifted the receiver from
the hook.

"Hello?" he said.

"Hello! Hello! Jimmie!" came a voice. "This is Carruthers. That you,
Jimmie?"

"Yes," said Jimmie Dale and sat down limply in the desk chair.

"It's the Gray Seal again. I promised you I'd let you in on the ground
floor next time anything happened, so come on down here quick if you
want to see some of his work at firsthand."

Jimmie Dale flirted a bead of sweat from his forehead.

"Carruthers," said Jimmie languidly, "you newspape