taclysm that might impend.
If only he could keep those cuffs within his range of vision he would
fear nothing. Patent laundry tubs; five dollars saved; why your husband
failed in business; bright and interesting future--

"'Lo! 'Lo!" Breede was detonating into the desk-telephone which had
sounded at his elbow.

"'Lo! Well? What? Run off! Stop nonsense! Busy!" He hung up the
receiver.

"--also mus' be stipulated that case of div'dend bein' passed--"

The desk telephone again rang, this time more emphatically. Bean was
chilled by a premonition that the flapper meant to pull off that funny
stunt which was to cause him quite deliciously to die laughing.

Breede grasped the receiver again impatiently.

"Busy, tell you! No time nonsense! What! _What_. W-H-A-T!!!"

He listened another moment, then lessening his tone-production but
losing nothing of intensity, he ripped out:

"_Gur--reat Godfrey!_"

His eyes, narrowed as he listened, now widened upon Bean who stared
determinedly at the cuffs.

"You know what she _says_?"

"Yes," said Bean doggedly.

Then his eyes met Breede's and gave them blaze for blaze. The Great
Reorganizer knew it not, but he no longer looked at Bunker Bean.
Instead, he was trying to shrivel with his glare a veritable king of old
Egypt who had enjoyed the power of life and death over his remotest
subject. Bean did not shrivel. Breede glared his deadliest only a
moment. He felt the sway of the great Ram-tah without identifying it. He
divined that mere glaring would not shrivel this presumptuous atom. In
truth, Bean outglared him. Breede leaned again to the telephone,
listening. Bean lowered his eyes to the cuffs. He sneered at them now.
The intention of the lifted upper lip was too palpable.

"Gur-reat stars above!" murmured Breede. "She says she's got it all
reasoned out!" There was something almost plaintive in his tones; he
shuddered. Then he rallied bravely once more.

"Tell you, no time nonsense. Busy."

But he seemed to know he was beaten. He listened again, then wilted.

"What next?" he demanded of Bean.

"Ask _her_!"

"Nice mess you got _me_ into!"

Bean sneered resolutely at the cuffs. Again the telephone tinkled.

Breede listened and horror grew on his face.

"Now she's told her mother," he muttered. "My God!"

The transmitter was an excellent one, and Bean caught notes of hysteria.
Julia was fussing back there.

"Now, now!" urged Breede. "No good. Better lie down. Sh