t.

[Illustration]

On the third of these occasions he was already seated at the table when
they were ushered into the dining room. Crowley dismissed the guards
with a wave of his hand as though they were liveried servants.

All had eaten but there were liqueurs and coffee, cigars and cigarettes
on the broad table.

Ross sank into a chair and growled, "Well, what hath the great man
wrought by now?"

Crowley grinned at him, poured coffee and then a dollop of Napoleon
brandy into it. He gestured with a hand. "Help yourselves, folks. How
you feeling? You been getting all the books you wanted? You look kind of
peaked, Pat."

"Miss O'Gara to you, you ape with delusions of grandeur," she snapped.
"When are you going to let us out of those prison cells?"

Crowley wasn't provoked. The strong can afford to laugh at the
malcontented weak. "That's one of the things you never know," he said
easily. "You sure you want out? Something the Doc said the other day had
a lotta fact in it. The fewer people know about this secret of mine, the
better off I'll be and the better off I am, the better off the whole
country is going to be and I gotta think about that. I got
responsibilities."

"A combination of Engine Charley and Louis XIV, eh?" Ross muttered,
running his beefy hand back over his crew cut. It was a relief to get
out of his room and talk with the others, but he didn't want Crowley to
see that.

"What's that?" the other was impatient of conversation that went above
his head.

Dr. Braun explained gently. "One said, _I am the State_, and the other,
_anything that's good for my corporation is good for the United
States_--or something quite similar."

Crowley sipped at his coffee royal. "Well, anyway, Pat, the day you're
ready to leave that cell, you'd better start worrying cause that'll mean
I don't need you any more."

Ross growled, "You didn't answer my question. Robbed any banks lately,
great man?"

The other eyed him coldly. "Take it easy, Buster. Maybe in the early
stages of the Common Man Movement we hafta take some strong-arm
measures, but that stage's about finished."

Patricia O'Gara was interested in spite of herself. She said. "You mean
you already have all the money you need?"

He was expansive. Obviously there was nothing to lose with these three
and he liked a sounding board. In spite of his alleged contempt for
eggheads there was an element in Crowley which wished to impress them,
to grant him equa