more like meeting a lion in
the street. Anyway, I've always wanted to meet a king, a lion and a
millionaire and here's where I meet one of them. Ever meet one?" He
turned to Coles.

"Meet which?" Coles smiled. "King, lion or millionaire?"

"Millionaire."

"No, can't say that I have, though I doubt if we'd either of us
recognize one if we should meet him on the street. Someone has said that
humanity is everywhere much the same and I fancy that's true even of
very rich folks. They may try to bluff you with their power but if they
find they can't do that, I guess they'll turn out to have the same
dreams, the same hopes and fears, the same joys and sorrows as the rest
of us."

"Do you think so?" said Curlie thoughtfully. "I hope that's true. It
would be a good thing for the world if it were true and if all the
people in the world knew it.

"Well, good night." He drew on his cap. "See you in about sixteen hours.
Guess it'll take me that long to catch up my sleep. After that I'm going
after that fellow who's breaking in on 1200, that fellow over at the
hotel with the whispering friend, or enemy, whichever she may turn out
to be."

Had he but known it, it was to be many days before he was to go after
that offender on the 1200 meter wave lengths and then it was to be in
ways of which he had not yet dreamed. And so he slept.

When he awoke after fourteen hours of refreshing sleep, it was to hear
the newsies crying their evening papers. For some time he lay there
listening to their shrill shouts and attempting to catch what they were
saying.

"Ex-tree! All about--" He could get that far, probably because he had
heard it so often before, but no further could he go. The remainder was
a jumble of meaningless sounds.

Suddenly, as he listened, a shrill urchin shouted the words out directly
beneath his very window:

"Wul--ex-tree! All about the mur-der-ed millionaire's son!"

"Here! Here!" exclaimed Curlie, thrusting his head out of the window.
"What millionaire's son? Give me one of those papers." He tossed the boy
a nickel and received a tightly wrapped paper. Sent through the window
as if shot from a catapult, it landed with a bump on the floor.

His hand trembled so he could scarcely unroll the paper. His head
whirled.

"Murdered?" he said to himself. "Millionaire's son murdered? Can it be
Vincent Ardmore? Did a bullet from my automatic, glancing from the
wheel, inflict a mortal wound?"

He saw himself behind p