t_, was the term when you were a boy."

Tracy chuckled wryly, "Thanks for the compliment, but I go back to the
days of _beat it_."

In the inner office the Chief looked up at him. "Sit down, Frank. What's
the word? Another exponent of free enterprise, pre-historic style?"

Frank Tracy found a chair and began talking even while fumbling for
briar and tobacco pouch. "No," he grumbled. "I don't think so, not this
time. I'm afraid there might be something more to it."

His boss leaned back in the massive old-fashioned chair he affected and
patted his belly, as though appreciative of a good meal just finished.
"Oh? Give it all to me."

Tracy finished lighting his pipe, flicked the match out and put it back
in his pocket, noting that he'd have to get a new one one of these days.
He cleared his throat and said, "Reports began coming in of house to
house canvassers selling soap for three cents a bar."

"_Three cents a bar?_ They can't manufacture it for that. Will the stuff
pass the Health Department?"

"Evidently," Tracy said wryly. "The salesman claimed it's the same soap
as reputable firms peddle."

"Go on."

"We had to go to a bit of trouble to get a line on them without raising
their suspicion. One of the boys lived in a neighborhood that was being
canvassed for new customers and his wife had signed up. So I took her
place when the salesman arrived with her first delivery--they deliver
the first batch. I let him think I was Bob Coty and questioned him, but
not enough to raise his suspicions."

"And?"

"An outfit selling soap and planning on branching into bread and heavens
knows what else. No advertising. No middlemen. No nothing, as the
salesman said, except standard soap at three cents a bar."

"They can't package it for that!"

"They don't package it at all."

The Chief raised his chubby right hand and wiped it over his face in a
stereotype gesture of resignation. "Did you get his home office address?
Maybe there's some way of buying them out--indirectly, of course."

"No, sir. It seemed to be somewhat of a secret."

The other's eyes widened. "Ridiculous. You can't hide anything like
that. There's a hundred ways of tracking them down before the day is
out."

"Of course. I've got Jerome Wiseman following him in a helio-jet. No use
getting rough, as yet. We'll keep it quiet ... assuming that meets with
your approval."

"You're in the field, Frank. You make the decisions."

The phone screen had lig