ibly happen up there that would take too much of
his time? He interjected soothingly.

"Oh, all right, all right, I suppose I'll _have_ to go. What's it
all about?"

"No, you don't _have_ to go. This is your vacation.
This paper," virtuously, "doesn't impose on its men. I wouldn't
dream of--"

"All right, chief, all right, I'll go. I don't have to go. But I'm
just aching, just yearning to go. What is it?"

Hite glowered at him for a moment. His joke wasn't working out
quite as planned. Still it would be swell to have Jimmy up there.
There ought to be a great feature story in it anyway, particularly
on July Fourth, and perhaps a swell follow-up the next day.

His ugly, rugged features returned to normal. He put away his
pipe. He said, holding up the clipping:

"There's gonna be a reunion of fourteen men in the camp of Isaac
Higginbotham, in Quebec, a few miles north of Lentone, Vermont.
The fourteen are all that remain of a group of two hundred and
thirty-seven, all of them veterans of the Civil War. Most of the
two hundred and thirty-seven were Confederates, but there were a
few Union men among them.

"They have a reunion every July 4th. They're mostly northern
Confederates. There have been hints for the past twenty years or
so that there's something in the group that's strange. It's never
got out, because newspapermen never really got after it and
covered their reunions. The reasons that first got them together
are obscure, but one thing that holds them together is a Tontine
insurance policy. It--"

"Tontine?" broke in Jimmy.

"Yeah, Tontine. Don't you know what Tontine insurance is?" he
asked with mild surprise. "In Tontine insurance a group of persons
get together, pay a lump sum or periodically, with the understanding
that the sole survivor takes the whole pot. Understand?"

Jimmy nodded. He repressed a grin. His eyes had caught on Hite's
desk a volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Volume XXIII,
TAB-UPS. He would look at that volume himself later and learn all
about Tontine insurance.

Hite continued:

"Well, Jimmy, among these fourteen survivors are some of the
foremost men in the country, men who have served their country in
various capacities, a few of them just ordinary poor men. Can't
you see what a swell feature story this can be for the Fourth.
Patriots all of them: Northern and Southern Confederates, Union
men from the North and the South. Why Jimmy--"

Jimmy nodded. His eyes took on t