you're safely wound up
again.... But I'm not going, dear."

Helen looked at him in silence, not wondering what he might be going
to do with his week-end instead, because she already guessed.

Before she said anything more his father came in; and a moment later
dinner was announced.

* * * * *

Jim slept soundly for the first night in a long time. His mother
scarcely closed her eyes at all.

CHAPTER XIV

There had been a row at the Red Flag Club--a matter of differing
opinions between members--nothing sufficient to attract the police,
but enough to break several heads, benches and windows. And it was
evident that some gentleman's damaged nose had bled all over the
linoleum in the lobby.

Elmer Skidder, arriving at the studio next morning in his brand new
limousine, heard about the shindy and went into the club to inspect
the wreckage. Then, mad all through, he started out to find Puma. But
a Sister Art had got the best of Angelo Puma in a questionable cabaret
the night before, and he had not yet arrived at the studio of the
Super-Picture Corporation.

Skidder, thrifty by every instinct, and now smarting under his wrongs
at the hands--and feet--of the Red Flag Club, went away in his
gorgeous limousine to find Sondheim, who paid the rental and who lived
in the Bronx.

It was a long way; every mile and every gallon of gasoline made
Skidder madder; and when at length he arrived at the brand new,
jerry-built apartment house inhabited by Max Sondheim, he had
concluded that the Red Flag Club was an undesirable tenant and that it
must be summarily kicked out.

Sondheim was still in bed, but a short-haired and pallid young woman,
with assorted spots on her complexion, bade Skidder enter, and opened
the chamber door for him.

The bedroom, which smelled of sour fish, was very cold, very dirty,
and very blue with cigar smoke. The remains of a delicatessen
breakfast stood on a table near the only window, which was tightly
shut, and under the sill of which a radiator emitted explosive
symptoms of steam to come.

Sondheim sprawled under the bed-covers, smoking; two other men sat on
the edge of the bed--Karl Kastner and Nathan Bromberg. Both were
smoking porcelain pipes. Three slopping quarts of beer decorated the
wash stand.

Skidder, who had halted in the doorway as the full aroma of the place
smote him, now entered at the curt suggestion of Sondheim, but refused
a