n location--slipping away
with her and taking 'em without nobody knowing about it? How should I be
knowing that without tipping his hand he would cook up the idea to work
a slick fake on you, Lobel, and scare you into killing off the whole
thing? How should I be knowing that while he was on the printing machine
all by himself the other night that he would work the old double
exposure stunt and throw such a scare into you in the projecting room
yesterday?"

By reason of his valvular resources Mr. Quinlan might shout louder than
Geltfin. But he could not shout louder than Mr. Lobel. Nobody in that
section of Southern California could. Mr. Lobel outblared him:

"How should you be knowing? You come now and ask me that when all along
it was you that had the swell idee to stick him into the laboratory all
by himself where he could play some funny business? You!"

"But it was you, Lobel, that wouldn't listen to me when I begged you to
wait and not burn up the negative. I tried to tell you that the negative
was O. K. when I'd seen it run off."

"You told me? It's a lie!"

"Sure I told you! Geltfin remembers my telling you, don't you, Geltfin?
You're an old bird, Lobel--you ought to know by now about retouching and
doctoring and all. You know how easy it is to slip over a double
exposure. But it was only the sample print that was doctored. The
negative was all right, but you wouldn't listen."

"That's right too, Lobel!" shrilled Geltfin. "I heard him when he yelled
out to you that you should wait!"

Quinlan amplified the indictment.

"Sure he heard me--and so did you! But no, you had to lose your nerve
and lose your head just because you'd had a scare throwed into you."

"I never lose my head! I never lose my nerve!" denied Mr. Lobel. He
turned the counter tide of recriminations on Geltfin.

"Anyhow,--it was you started it, Geltfin--you in the first place, right
here in this room, with your craziness about the dead coming back. Only
for your fool talk I would never have had the idee of a ghost at all.
And now--now when the cow is all spilt milk you two come and--"

"Oh, but Lobel," countered Geltfin, "remember you was the one that made
'em burn up the negative without giving it a look at all!"

"He said it, Lobel!" reenforced Quinlan. "You was the one that just
would have the negative burned up whether or no. And now it's burned
up!"

Mr. Lobel was not used to being bullied in his own office or elsewhere.
If ther