s, and the Indian god stuff, and the Lochinvar--"

Johnny sat up belligerently. "Say! What are you looking for?
Trouble?"

"Merely verifying rumors. A very natural professional caution, I
assure you."

"Caution! Hnh! Funny way you've got of being cautious, old-timer.
I'd call it a fine way of heading down-stairs without waiting for the
elevator."

"I understand--perfectly. So you have no settled plans for the future,
I take it? Just ready for whatever turns up that looks promising?"

Johnny grunted and looked at his watch. Hunger, which he had forgotten
in the novelty of his surroundings, began to manifest itself again. He
got up and gleaned his aviator's helmet from a branch of the mahogany
hatrack and looked at it dubiously, wishing that it was his Big Four
Stetson instead.

"What I'm ready for right now is chuck," he said pointedly. "I ain't
fortune teller enough to give you any line on my future. I wish to
heck I could. I'm out here to make good at flying. Money--that's what
I want. Lots of it. But right now I want a square meal more than
anything. So I'm afraid--"

"All right, Jewel. I cease to be a news hound and become your host,
with your permission. Let me take you to a regular place, will you? I
haven't had dinner yet myself."

"You ain't? Good golly! What you been doing all day?"

The reporter who had ceased to be a reporter checked a smile while he
picked up gloves and cane and opened the door.

"Say! If I told you all I've been doing, old man, you'd think flying
from Tucson is a snap! It's a merry life we newspaper men lead. Not."

They were at the elevator before it occurred to Johnny that he was
deviating considerably from his intended line of conduct. He
remembered that Bland had promised to wait for him outside the door.
He was not at all certain that Bland would do so in the face of
temptations,--such as hunger and thirst,--but it seemed a shabby trick
to play him nevertheless. Instinct warned him that Bland could not be
included in the invitation. Bland was indefinably but inexorably out
of it. This fellow--and there Johnny remembered that he did not know
the name of his host, and that he had but a moment ago all but
threatened to throw him down six flights of winding stairs built all of
steel or marble or some hard fireproof substance that would make
painful tobogganing. He eyed askance the nameless one and was
impressed anew by the absolute correctness of h