ews and a good looker sticking gardenias in his buttonhole, ain't
what he's likely to say next day in your office."

"You have accompany him to Broadway and you have shown him the
parcel?"

"I sure did."

"You explain how we can not lose out? You mention the option?"

Skidder cast aside his white tie and tried another, constructed on the
butterfly plan.

"I put the whole thing up to him," he said. "No use stalling with
Alonzo D. Pawling. I know him too well. So I let out straight from the
shoulder, and he knows the scheme we've got in mind and he knows we
want his money in it. That's how it stands to-night."

Puma nodded and softly joined his over-manicured finger-tips:

"We give him a good time," he said. "We give him a little dinner like
there never was in New York. Yes?"

"You betcha."

"Barclay is a devil. You think she please him?"

"Alonzo D. Pawling is some bird himself," remarked Skidder, picking up
his hat and turning to Puma, who rose with lithe briskness, put on his
hat, and began to pull at his white gloves.

They went down to the street, where Puma's car was waiting.

"I stop at the office a moment," he said, as they entered the
limousine. "You need not get out, Elmer."

At the studio he descended, saying to Skidder that he'd be back in a
moment.

But it was very evident when he entered his office that he had not
expected to find Max Sondheim there; and he hesitated on the
threshold, his white-gloved hand still on the door-knob.

"Come in, Puma; I want to see you," growled Sondheim, retaining his
seat but pocketing _The Call_, which he had been reading.

"To-morrow," said Puma coolly; "I have no time----"

"No, _now_!" interrupted Sondheim.

They eyed each other for a moment in silence, then Puma shrugged:

"Very well," he said. "But be quick, if you please----"

"Look here," interrupted the other in a menacing voice, "you're
getting too damned independent, telling me to be quick! I had a date
with you here at five o'clock. You thought you wouldn't keep it and
you left at four-thirty. But I stuck around till you 'phoned in that
you'd stop here to get some money. It's seven o'clock now, and I've
waited for you. And I guess you've got enough time to hear what I'm
going to say."

Puma looked at him without any expression at all on his sanguine
features. "Go on," he said.

"What I got to say to you is this," began Sondheim. "There's a kind of
a club that uses our hall on off nights.