efficient, and if he'd eaten 'Brain-more' mush for breakfast, nothing would have happened. We'll try it, anyway, and there's a triple-plate spoon in every package, so if I order a dozen . . . and oh, yes, what was I going to say? Why, I'm perfectly going to pull off the funniest stunt this afternoon; you'd just deliciously die laughing if I told you, but it will be still funnier if you don't know. Are you paying attention? It's because I'd already spent my allowance for three years and seven months ahead—I figured it all out like a statement—and I've perfectly just got to have some money of my real own. I've enough to worry about without bringing money into it, with proper food for you and those patent laundry tubs I told you about, and the man says he wouldn't think of letting it go for less than two seventy-five, but that's five dollars saved. Well, good-bye! I'll manage everything, and Granny says always to conceal little household worries from him, and just perfectly keep the future looking bright and interesting . . . she says that's the secret. Good bye! What am I?"
"Startled fawn," said Bean.
"Well, don't forget."
"I won't. I'll attend to my part all right."
He heard the fateful buzzing even before he opened the door of the telephone booth. Breede was at it again. He walked coolly to his desk for a note-book. Every one else in the office was showing nervousness. He was the only man who could still the troubled waters. He would play
