hat we ought to do for him that is puzzling."

Which gives you a line, I expect, on this little debate of ours. Yep!
Gerald is No. 8 on Pyramid Gordon's list. He'd been a private secretary
for Mr. Gordon at one time or another; but he'd been handed his
passports kind of abrupt one mornin', and had been set adrift in a cold
world without warnin'.

"In fact," goes on Steele, "I am told that Gordon actually kicked him
out of his office; in rather a public manner too."

"Huh!" says I. "I expect he deserved it, then."

"Not at all," says Steele. "I've looked that point up. It was over a
letter which Gordon himself had dictated to Webb not forty-eight hours
before; you know, one of his hot-headed, arrogant, go-to-blazes retorts,
during the thick of a fight. But this happened to be in reply to an
ultimatum from the Reamur-Brooks Syndicate, and by next morning he'd
discovered that he was in no position to talk that way to them. Well, as
you know, Pyramid Gordon wasn't the man to eat his own words."

"No," says I, "that wa'n't his fav'rite diet. So he made Gerald the
goat, eh?"

"Precisely!" says Steele. "Called him in before the indignant
delegation, headed by old Reamur himself, and demanded of poor Webb what
he meant by sending out such a letter. The youngster was so flustered
that he could only stammer a confused denial. He started sniveling. Then
Gordon collared him and booted him into the corridor. That should have
closed the incident, but a few moments later back comes Webb, blubbering
like a whipped schoolboy, and perfectly wild with rage. He was armed
with a mop that he'd snatched from an astonished scrubwoman, and he
stormed in whimpering that he was going to kill Gordon. Absurd, of
course. A mop isn't a deadly weapon. Some of the clerks promptly rushed
in and held Webb until an officer could be called. Then Pyramid laughed
it off and refused to prosecute. But the story got into the papers, you
may remember; and while more or less fun was poked at Gordon, young Webb
came in for a good share. And naturally his career as a private
secretary ended right there."

"Yes," says I. "If I was takin' on a secretary myself, I wouldn't pick
one that was subject to fits of mop wieldin'. What happened to him after
that? How low did he fall?"

J. Bayard tosses over a fancy business card printed in three colors and
carryin' this inscription in old English letterin':

AT THE SIGN OF THE BRASS CANDLESTICK
Tea Room and