duplicated signaling and all--having taken very much
less time for its action than has here been required to describe it.

The signal bearer had taken perhaps five steps when Hartridge spoke
words which instantly filled Marr with regret that he had been so
impetuously prompt to take a no for a no.

"Say, hold your hosses, Markham," said Hartridge contritely. "Don't be
in such a hurry! Come to think about it, I might go so far as to risk
altogether as much, say, as eight or ten thousand dollars in this scheme
of yours--I don't want to be a piker."

In the hundredth part of a second Marr's mind reacted; his brain was
galvanized into speedy action. Ten thousand wasn't very much--not nearly
so much as he had counted on--still, ten thousand dollars was ten
thousand dollars; besides, if the Gulwings did their work cannily the
ten thousand ought to be merely a starter, an initiation fee, really,
for the victim. Once he was enmeshed, trust Sig and Alf to trim him to
his underwear; the machinery of the wire-tapping game was geared for
just that.

He must stop the departing messenger then, must make him understand that
the wrong sign had been given and that the fish was nibbling the bait.
Yet the messenger's back was to them; ten steps, fifteen steps more, and
he would be out of the door.

For Marr suddenly to hail a man he was supposed not to know might be
fatal; almost surely at this critical moment it would stir up suspicion
in Hartridge's mind. Yet some way, somehow, at once, he must stop the
word bearer. But how? That was it--how?

Ah, he had it! In the fraction of a moment he had it. It came to him
now, fully formed, the shape of it conjured up out of that jumble of
words which had been flowing to him from the telephone desk all the
while he had been sitting there and which had registered subconsciously
in his quick brain. The pause, naturally spaced, which fell between
Hartridge's 'bout-faced concession and Marr's reply, was not unduly
lengthened, yet in that flash of time Marr had analyzed the puzzle of
the situation and had found the answer to it.

"Bully, Hartridge!" he exclaimed. "You'll never regret it. Our man ought
to be here any minute now.... By Jove! That reminds me--I meant to
telephone for some tickets for to-night's Follies--you're going with me
as my guest. Just a moment!"

He got on his feet and as he came out of the corner and still was eight
feet distant from the telephone girl, he called out lou