me, I afterward
learned, were the manufacturers whose plants I had investigated for the
city. Some of the best families in New York are connected with Newtown
Creek glue and they, it seems, had stuck to me in this emergency. A fish
man will believe anything a glue man tells him; I don't know why, but
it's so, and the fact was certainly to my advantage.

When Tescheron had calmed I broke out with a hiss and a stutter; it
wasn't a laugh, for I haven't laughed in years. All my laughing since
1889 has been a strictly intellectual process; but I did have an awful
pain because I could not digest his statement with a bouncing laugh. All
I could do was to stammer and splutter like a bass viol tuning up, while
I sozzled around in my chair trying to break in with something that
would count. Why should a man of my temperament take a hand in love, war
or diplomacy? As a theoretical manipulator of fathers-in-law, as a
text-book writer on the subject, I was in the extra fancy class, but the
part of Daniel in the lion's den could not be played by me unless I
agreed to step in the marble-lined vestibule of open jaws and get
kicked down the back stairs after a thorough overhauling. On the firing
line my plans did not fit and I became a failure.

A smell of fish in the room restored me. I knew not whence it came, but
its soft presence yielding to my keen detector restored my professional
pride and self-respect. I then felt I was something of a detective after
all. I eyed a revolving ventilator in the window-pane as a possible
avenue of its entrance from the culinary department. I did not suspect
Tescheron.

"I see you are not inclined to side with me in this matter," he rattled
on. "To-night I notify the coroner. I--"

"Are you a fool?" I blurted with that rare presence of mind which will
some day save me by putting me in jail. "Are you an idiot? You seem to
be gone in the head. Call a dozen coroners, by all means, and be the
laughing-stock of the town. Drag your whole family into the illustrated
newspapers. Go ahead and have a good time at your own expense. Get out
the fire department and have them squirt on you!" I was surprised at the
string of sarcasm which rolled forth when I did start.

Tescheron danced a first-class vaudeville turn and shouted: "Say what
you please, I notify the coroner! Hosley killed his wife so that he
might marry my daughter; I have had detectives out, so I know and you
don't. I--"

"How long have you ha