they're still grinding 'em out!"

Mallory turns the color of the candleshades and shakes his head. "You
print any such rot as that about me," says he, "and I'll come down and
wreck the office. I'm out of all that now, and into something that has
opened my eyes to what sort of useless individual I am. Behold, Whitey,
one of the unfit!"

Then Whitey wants to know all about it.

"It's nothing much," says Mallory, "only I've been sent out to do
business with a Russian Baron, and I'm such a chump I can't even get
within speaking distance of him."

"What Baron?" says Whitey. "Not Kazedky?"

"That's the identical one," says Mallory. "Don't happen to know him, do
you?"

"I sure do," says Whitey. "Didn't he and I have a heart to heart session
when that sporty Russian Prince was over here and got himself pinched at
a prizefight? Kazedky was secretary of the legation then, and it was
through me he got the story muffled."

"Wish you could find out where he is now," says Mallory.

"Don't have to," says Whitey; "I know. He's up in private dining-room
No. 9. Been captured by a gang of Chamber of Commerce men, who are
feeding him ruddy duck and terrapin and ten-dollar champagne. He's got a
lot of steel contracts up his sleeve, you know, and----"

"Yes, I know," says Mallory; "but how can I get to see him?"

"Who are you with?" says Whitey.

"Corrugated Trust," says Mallory.

"Wow!" says Whitey, them skim-milk eyes of his gettin' big. "They
wouldn't let you within a mile of him if they knew. But say, suppose I
could lug him outside, would I get that football story?"

"You would," says Mallory.

"By to-morrow noon?" says he.

"Before morning, if you'll stay at the office until I get through here,"
says Mallory.

"Good!" says Whitey. "Come on! I'll snake him out of there if I have to
drag him by the collar. But he's a fussy old freak, and I don't
guarantee he'll stay more than a minute."

"That's enough," says Mallory. "He can talk French, I suppose?"

"What's the matter with English?" says Whitey. "Now let's see what kind
of hot air I'll give him."

Whitey didn't say what it was he thinks up; but he was grinnin' all
over his face when he leaves us outside of No. 9 and goes in where the
corks was poppin'. It must have been a happy thought, though; for it
wa'n't long before he comes out, towin' a dried-up little old runt with
a full set of face lambrequins and a gold dog license hung round his
neck from a red rib