eet you," faltered Milt.

Jeff nodded, turned his shoulder on Milt, and went on, "The fact is, Mr.
Boltwood, the whole metal market----"

Milt was looking from one to another. Claire was now over her first
shocked comparison of candied fruits with motor grease. She rose, moved
toward Milt, murmuring, "Have you had dinner?"

The door opened again. A pink-haired, red-faced man in a preposterous
green belted suit lunged in, swept his broad felt hat in greeting, and
boomed like a cheap actor:

"Friends of my friend Milt, we about to dine salute you. Let me
introduce myself as Westlake Parrott, better known to the vulgar as
Pinky Parrott, gentleman adventurer, born in the conjunction of Mars and
Venus, with Saturn ascendant."

Jeff had ignored Milt. But at this absurd second intrusion on his
decidedly private dinner-party he flipped to the center of the room and
said "I beg your pardon!" in such a head-office manner that the
pink-locked Mystery halted in his bombast. Claire felt wabbly. She had
no theories as to where Milt had acquired a private jester, nor as to
what was about to happen to Milt--and possibly to her incautious self.

CHAPTER XVII

THE VAGABOND IN GREEN

As Milt had headed westward from Butte, as he rattled peacefully along
the road, conscious of golden haze over all the land, and the
unexpectedness of prairie threshing-crews on the sloping fields of
mountainsides, a man had stepped out from bushes beside the road, and
pointed a .44 navy revolver.

The man was not a movie bandit. He wore a green imitation of a Norfolk
jacket, he had a broad red smile, and as he flourished his hat in a bow,
his hair was a bristly pompadour of gray-streaked red that was almost
pink. He made oration:

"Pardon my eccentric greeting, brother of the open road, but I wanted
you to give ear to my obsequious query as to how's chances on gettin' a
lift? I have learned that obsequiousness is best appreciated when it is
backed up by prayer and ca'tridges."

"What's the idea? I seem to gather you'd like a lift. Jump in."

"You do not advocate the Ciceronian style, I take it," chuckled the man
as he climbed aboard.

Milt was not impressed. Claire might have been, but Milt had heard
politics and religion argued about the stove in Rauskukle's store too
often to be startled by polysyllabomania. He knew it was often the sign
of a man who has read too loosely and too much by himself. He snorted.
"Huh! What are you--news