The League of Frightened Men

Wolfe said, "Go on," but he didn't get up so he could see.» . "I can't. It's locked." \ "Well." I went to the safe and got a couple of my bunches of keys, and went back and started trying. The lock was nothing remarkable; in a few minutes I had it. I laid the keys down and lifted the lid. Orrie stood up and looked in with me. We didn't say anything for a second, then we looked at each other. I never saw him look so disgusted. J Wolfe said, "Empty?"

"No, sir. We'll have to give Orrie a ;^ drink. It's not his, it's hers. I mean Dora Chapin's. It's her hand-and-foot box.

Gloves and stockings and maybe other dainties."

"Indeed." To my surprise Wolfe 1 showed interest. His lips pushed out and in. He was even going to get up. He did so, and I shoved the box across.

"Indeed. I suspect – yes, it must be.

Archie. Kindly remove them and spread them on the desk. Here, I'll help. No, Orrie, not unless you wash your hands first. – Ha, more intimate still! But mostly stockings and gloves. – Less roughly, Archie, out of respect for the dignity the race aspires to; what we are displaying on this desk-top is the soul of a •man. Qualities may be deduced – for instance, do you notice that the gloves, varying as they do in color and material, are all of a size? Among twenty pairs or more, not one exception? Could you ask more of loyalty and fidelity? 0, that I ^ere a glove upon that hand… But with Romeo it was only rhetoric; for Paul Chapin the glove is the true treasure, with no hope beyond either of sweet or of bitter. – Again, let us not be carried away; it is a distortion to regard this or that aspect of a phenomenon to the exclusion of others. In the present case, for example, we cannot afford to forget that these articles are of expensive materials and workmanship, that they must have cost Dr. Burton something around three hundred dollars and that he therefore had a right to expect that they should get more wear. Some of them, indeed, are practically new. To strike a balance -" r y^Orrie was sitting down again staring at him. It was I who cut him off: "Where does Burton come in? I'm asking that in English."