The League of Frightened Men

He took the package and said, "The cop was sore as a boil yesterday when he found you'd gone. How're you feeling?" • "Magnificent. Run ahead, mister.^ He went, and came back, and I gave him a quarter. I asked him, "Did I break anything on your vertical buggy? The lever wouldn't work."

He grinned about a sixteenth of an inch.

"141 bet it wouldn't. Naw, you didn't break it."

So I kept Wolfe's promise for him and got the package delivered without running any unnecessary risk of being invited in for tea, and all it cost me was two bits, which was cheap enough.

Wolfe returned before I got back home.

I knew that in the hall, seeing his hat and coat there. Since it was after four o'clock he would of course be upstairs with the plants, but all of his traipsing around had me nervous, and before going to the office I went up the three flights. I had hardly. seen the orchids for more than brief | glances for nearly a week. Wolfe was in the tropical room, going down the line looking for aphids, and from the expression on his face I knew he had found some. I stood there, and pretty soon he turned and looked at me as if I was either an aphid myself or had them all over me. There was no use attempting any conversation. I beat it downstairs to resume at the telephone.

I only got two of the remaining three, couldn't find Roland Erskine anywhere.

As it was, we had done pretty good. A telegram had come from Boston saying that Collard and Gaines would be there, and Mollison was coming down from New Haven. I suspected that Wolfe would have handled the long distance babies himself even if I hadn't been in bed.

Wolfe didn't come to the office directly from the plant-rooms at six o'clock as usual. Apparently he had stopped in his room, for when he appeared around sixthirty he was lugging a stack of books and I saw they were Paul Chapin's novels. He put them on his desk and sat down and rang for beer.

I told him Mrs. Chapin had the box, and read him the notes of my afternoon call on Mrs. Burton. He gave me some instructions for the evening, which I made notes of because he liked to have everything down, and then he got playful.

He made a lot of random remarks and

I took them like a gentleman, and then because it was getting on towards dinner I observed that it was about time I got acquainted with the mystery of the pair of gloves on the foyer table. To my surprise he agreed with me.