o use a
corkscrew. Fillmore's wife, you were saying..."

Ginger came back reluctantly to the main theme.

"Well, she came into the office one morning, and we started fooling
about..."

"Fooling about?"

"Well, kind of chivvying each other."

"Chivvying?"

"At least I was."

"You were what?"

"Sort of chasing her a bit, you know."

Sally regarded this apostle of frivolity with amazement.

"What do you mean?"

Ginger's embarrassment increased.

"The thing was, you see, she happened to trickle in rather quietly when
I happened to be looking at something, and I didn't know she was there
till she suddenly grabbed it..."

"Grabbed what?"

"The thing. The thing I happened to be looking at. She bagged it...
collared it... took it away from me, you know, and wouldn't give it back
and generally started to rot about a bit, so I rather began to chivvy
her to some extent, and I'd just caught her when your brother happened
to roll in. I suppose," said Ginger, putting two and two together, "he
had really come with her to the office and had happened to hang back for
a minute or two, to talk to somebody or something... well, of course, he
was considerably fed to see me apparently doing jiu-jitsu with his wife.
Enough to rattle any man, if you come to think of it," said Ginger, ever
fair-minded. "Well, he didn't say anything at the time, but a bit later
in the day he called me in and administered the push."

Sally shook her head.

"It sounds the craziest story to me. What was it that Mrs. Fillmore took
from you?"

"Oh, just something."

Sally rapped the table imperiously.

"Ginger!"

"Well, as a matter of fact," said her goaded visitor, "It was a
photograph."

"Who of? Or, if you're particular, of whom?"

"Well... you, to be absolutely accurate."

"Me?" Sally stared. "But I've never given you a photograph of myself."

Ginger's face was a study in scarlet and purple.

"You didn't exactly give it to me," he mumbled. "When I say give, I
mean..."

"Good gracious!" Sudden enlightenment came upon Sally. "That photograph
we were hunting for when I first came here! Had you stolen it all the
time?"

"Why, yes, I did sort of pinch it..."

"You fraud! You humbug! And you pretended to help me look for it." She
gazed at him almost with respect. "I never knew you were so deep and
snaky. I'm discovering all sorts of new things about you."

There was a brief silence. Ginger, confession over, seemed a trifle
hap