Toledo. But what is he going to do
with you?"

"Nothing. I called him off."

Dolph nodded at the ankle he was nursing in both hands.

"Grand work, that!" he said. "It would be about as easy as calling off
a flea that was starting on a cross-country journey to the nearest dog.
How did you manage?"

Reed's brown eyes laughed; but his voice was grave.

"I invoked Ramsdell, and he did the deed. From all accounts, he did it
thoroughly, for Prather hasn't put his nose inside my room, since the
day that Ramsdell escorted him downstairs."

"I say!" Dolph looked up suddenly. "I've a patch to put over that hole.
About three weeks ago? Yes? Well, at Olive Keltridge's last dinner,
Prather came edging up to me. I saw he had things on his mind, and I
wasn't busy, so I let him get them off. Else, I was afraid he'd
strangle with the unaccustomed load."

"And the things were me?" Reed inquired urbanely.

"Yes. He asked me if I had heard that you were growing very nervous
lately. That you--Well, never mind the rest of it. In the time of it,
though, I supposed that it was his novelist's imagination that had got
to work. Now I know it was only another manifestation of the almighty
Ramsdell."

"He is almighty, Dolph. I'd be badly off without him."

"So I observe." Dolph chuckled. "At first, I was as afraid of him as if
he had been a country undertaker looking for a job; but I'm slowly
coming to the belief that the fellow is an actual wag. Really, you'd be
badly off without him. He'll stay on, of course?"

"As long as I can keep him. He informs me daily that he'll see me
through it till I die. From all indications, though, I'm a good deal
more afraid of his dying, first."

"Rot!" Dolph remarked cheerily. "What you need, Opdyke, is to forego
thoughts of dying, and get busy."

"What about?" Reed asked a little bitterly. "My present environment
isn't particularly fitted for the strenuous life."

Dolph shut his two hands, side by side, around his ankle. When he
spoke, though, his voice was unconcerned.

"Not unless you take your profession into bed with you," he remarked.

From behind Opdyke's courteous smile for a rather dull joke, there
gathered interest, comprehension, eagerness.

"Dennison, you mean something or other, out of that," he said, after a
little pause.

Dolph shot him one swift glance of scrutiny.

"Naturally. As a rule, I don't talk at random," he said then.

"What do you mean, exactly?" Reed sought to