or's got a part for her. Real part. Small but a stunner. Outcast
girl. I s'pose she's got some old duds to dress it in?"

"Sure thing!"

"Well, tell her to bring 'em along. And say, listen! I don't mind
passing you the tip that the castin' director has his eye on that girl
for doin' the pathetic stunt; so see she ain't late."

"Y'betcha."

That an ambitious man, growing anxious about his future, was thus
placed in a trying situation will be seen at once. The chance of a
lifetime was there and he was unable to seize it. Everyone knew that
by these small condensations of nebular promise stars were eventually
evolved, and to have at his disposal the earnings of a star....

It seemed providential then that on dropping into the basement eating
place at which he had begun to take his breakfasts he should fall in
with Gorry Larrabin. They were not friends, or rather they were better
than friends; they were enemies who found each other useful. Mutually
antipathetic, they quarrelled, but could not afford to quarrel long. A
few days or a few weeks having gone by, they met with a nod, as if no
hot words had been passed.

It was such an occasion now. Ten days earlier Judson had called Gorry
to his teeth "no detective, but a hired sneak." Gorry had retorted
that, hired sneak as he was, he would have Judson Flack "in the jug"
as a promoter of faked companies before the year was out. One word had
led to another, and only the intervention of friends to both parties
had kept the high-spirited fellows from exchanging blows. But the
moment had come round again when each had an axe to grind, so that as
Judson hung up his hat near the table at which Gorry, having finished
his breakfast, was smoking and picking his teeth, the nod of
reconciliation was given and returned.

"Say, why don't you sit down here?"

Politely Gorry indicated the unoccupied side of his own table. It was
a small table covered with a white oil-cloth, and tolerably clean.

"Don't mind if I do," was the other's return of courtesy, friendly
relations being thus re-established.

Having given his order to a stunted Hebrew maid of Polish culture,
Judson Flack launched at once into the subject of Letty. He did this
for a two-fold reason. First, his grievance made the expression of
itself imperative, and next, Gorry being a hanger-on of that
profession which lives by knowing what other people don't might be in
a position to throw light on Letty's disappearance. If h