miles an hour. I say, let well enough alone.
Where youse keep your matches, Mr. Farnum? Thanks! Well, talk it over
with P. C. I reckon you can get together. So long, me boy."

Not until he was safe in the street did the big boss of Verden allow his
satisfaction expression.

"We've got him! We've got the boob hooked!" he told himself exultantly.

A little man standing behind a showcase was watching him tensely.

CHAPTER 9

"Man is for woman made,
And woman made for man
As the spur is for the jade,
As the scabbard for the blade,
As for liquor is the can,
So man's for woman made,
And woman made for man."

THE HERO STUDIES THE MONA LISA SMILE IN ITS PROPER SETTING.
INCIDENTALLY, HE MEETS AN EMPIRE BUILDER

Since James was not courting observation he took as inconspicuous a way
as possible to The Brakes. He was irritably conscious of the incongruity
of his elaborate afternoon dress with the habits of democratic Verden,
which had been too busy "boosting" itself into a great city, or at least
one in the making, to have found time to establish as yet a leisure
class.

Leaving the car at the entrance to Lakeview Park, he cut across it by
sinuous byways where madronas and alders isolated him from the twilit
green of the open lawn. Though it was still early the soft winter dusk
of the Pacific Northwest was beginning to render objects indistinct.
This perhaps may have been the reason he failed to notice the skulking
figure among the trees that dogged him to his destination.

James laughed at himself for the exaggerated precaution he took to cover
a perfectly defensible action. Why shouldn't he visit at the house of P.
C. Frome? Entirely clear as to his right, he yet preferred his call not
to become a matter of public gossip. For he did not need to be told that
there would be ugly rumors if it should get out that Big Tim had called
at his office for a conference and he had subsequently been seen going
to The Brakes. Dunderheads not broad enough to separate social from
political intercourse would be quick to talk unpleasantly about it.

Deflecting from the path into a carriage driveway, he came through
a woody hollow to the rear of The Brakes. The grounds were spacious,
rolling toward the road beyond in a falling sweep of well-kept lawn. He
skirted the green till he came to a "raveled walk" that zig-zagged up
through the grass, leaving to the left the rough fern-clad blu