one would think he
was a Southerner, but must we listen to--"

Pat Collins, a newcomer to the staff of the Eagle, interrupted.

"Shut up, Roy. I've heard a lot about this Brierly, but I know
very little about him. Does Jimmy know him personally?"

"Know him?" drawled Heath. "Pat, to hear Jimmy talk, you'd think
he created Brierly. Go on Jimmy, you got an audience."

Jimmy bristled. Roy had touched a sensitive spot, but he saw that
this was just the superficial cynicism of the newspaperman. He saw
the respectful interest that even these hardened reporters could
not disguise. They shared his genuine admiration for the
remarkable old scientist.

"Come on, Jimmy," urged Pat. "Tell me."

"You yellow journalists, with your minds running on lurid
headlines, can hardly appreciate a man of his kind. Professor
Herman Brierly is one of the four foremost scientists in the world
today. He shuns publicity, really shuns it, and it is only because
of his participation in several remarkable criminal cases that he
has become generally known.

"He's nearly eighty years old. He doesn't wear glasses and I
believe he still has all his teeth. He is little more than five
feel tall, but built like a miniature Apollo; bushy white hair;
deeply sunken blue eyes that seem to dissect one with sharp
knives, and bushy black eyebrows.

"He has a passion for pure thought and has the finest analytical
faculty of any man I know. He can truly be said to 'specialize' in
a great many subjects. To him the distance from cause to effect or
from effect to cause is a short and a simple one. He has not a
superior in physics, chemistry, anatomy, physiology and the
sciences generally. He is as familiar with the microscope as the
ordinary man is with a pencil.

"It was some years ago that I got him interested in criminology.
To his mind each crime is merely a scientific problem which he
goes about solving as if it were any other scientific problem. It
is only recently that he has begun to take an active interest in
the human phases of criminology.

"He hates newspapers, newspapermen and loose thinking. He connects
the last, loose thinking, with newspapers and reporters. I got in
with him because his chief assistant and adopted son, John
Matthews, was a classmate of mine in the university. John, if he
lives long enough, will be as great a scientist as his chief.
John, or Jack as I call him, is over six feet tall and would have
made any professional hea