ging him from home with awkward but sincere
apologies to Alice.

"You will lend me your husband, Hein?" he would say. "I like to tell him
of my fancies, for he understands ... the others laugh at me."

Alice smiled into his broad, good humored face. "That's very silly of
them."

"Donnerwetter! Some day they will laugh the other way around," he
threatened.

* * * * *

Benito and Sutro usually drove or rode through the Presidio and out
along a road which skirted cliffs and terminated at the Seal Rock House.
There they dined and watched the seals disporting on some sea-drenched
rocks, a stone's throw distant. And there Sutro indulged in more dreams.

"Some day I shall purchase that headland and build me a home ... and
farther inland I shall grow a forest out of eucalyptus trees. They come
from Australia.... One can buy them cheap enough.... They grow fast like
bamboo in the Tropics." He clapped a hand upon Benito's knee. "I shall
call it Mount Parnassus."

Benito tried to smile appreciatively. He felt rather dubious about the
scheme. But he liked to see the other's quiet eyes flash with an
unexpected fire. Perhaps his genius might indeed reclaim this desolate
region. Inward from the beach lay the waste of sand-hills known as
Golden Gate Park. There was talk among the real estate visionaries of
making it a pleasure ground.

So regularly did they end their outings with a dinner at the Seal Rock
House that Alice always knew where to find her husband in case some
clamorous client sought Benito's aid. And tonight as an attendant called
his name he answered with no other thought than that he would be asked
to make a will or soothe some jealous and importunate wife who wanted a
divorce without delay. They usually did want them that way. He rose,
leisurely enough, and made his way to the door. There, instead of the
usual messenger boy, stood Alice.

"You must come at once," she panted. "Robert has been robbed of an
important letter to the bank. They talk of arresting him.... Ralston
wants you at his office."

CHAPTER LXIII

LEES SOLVES A MYSTERY

In the president's office at the Bank of California, Benito found his
son, pale but intrepid. He was being questioned by William Sharon and a
postoffice inspector. Ralston, hands crammed into trousers pockets,
paced the room disturbedly.

"You admit, then, that the envelope was given you?" Sharon was asking
truculently as Benito entered