as I call him, is over six feet tall and would have made any professional heavyweight step some if he had taken to the ring as a profession.

"To see and hear the two of them is a treat. It reminds one of a battleship being convoyed by a clean cut little motor launch. And to hear them! The old man is constantly deploring—"

At this moment there cut through the abnormal quiet of the smoky city room the deep growl of its autocrat, "Iron Man" Hite. Jimmy stopped. Hite was calling his name. No one who was not deaf ever let Hite call him twice.

"Hey, Hale," roared the voice.

Jimmy reached the dais of the man who was said to be the best and the cruellest city editor in the newspaper game.

"Jimmy, your vacation begins next week, doesn't it?"

Jimmy nodded and looked at his superior expectantly. Hite continued:

"Your little tin god, Professor Herman Brierly, is spending the summer up in Canada, isn't he?"

Jimmy nodded again.

"Howdje like to spend your vacation up there with Brierly at the paper's expense?"

Jimmy made no effort to hide the suspicion in his eyes. He had heard of Greeks bearing gifts, particularly when the Greek took the shape of his city editor.

"What do you mean, my vacation at the paper's expense? I get my pay during my two weeks' vacation, don't I?"

"Yes, but the paper is willing to pay all the expenses of your vacation besides. What do you think of that?"

The suspicion in Jimmy's eyes grew deeper. He knew his city editor. There was—Hite cut in on his reflections.

"A swell chance for you to spend part or all of your vacation with Professor Brierly and your friend, Matthews. District Attorney McCall is up there too. Brierly is in McCall's shack." He was becoming enthusiastic. "Just think of a vacation at the paper's expense in—"

"I was planning to spend my vacation elsewhere," said Jimmy coldly. "Besides, Professor Brierly doesn't want any visitors. He needs a rest. Jack consented to go up there with the Professor only on condition that McCall doesn't talk shop. I've got my vacation all planned."

"But Jimmy, up there where Brierly is you can get the best ale in the world—and beer—say, just thinking of it makes my mouth water. If you must drink you ought to go up there for a spell instead of drinking this needled beer and the lousy hootch you get in the speakeasies. And that lake up there, Lake Memphremagog, is one of the most beautiful in the world. Just the thing for a newspaperman. Why Jimmy—"

"All right, I'll bite. What do you want me to do up in Canada—on my vacation."

"Who the hell said I want you to do anything on your vacation? That's the chief trouble with this newspaper game; it makes people so damn suspicious."

"Oh, yeah. Tomorrow, Friday, I draw three weeks' pay and my two weeks' vacation begins. You want me to go up to Canada and spend my vacation with Professor Brierly, where the air of Lake Men—whatever the name is, is salubrious and where they have delicious, wholesome beer and ale. I go up there, get healthy and strong, recuperate from this hectic newspaper life and return. When I return, I submit a bill for the fare, and other expenses and the beer and ale. And you pay this expense account. And it ends there, does it? During this two weeks you don't want me to see anybody or do anything or dig up any story for the paper, do you. Is that the program?"

"Sure, that's the program exactly. But you won't object, will you, Jimmy, if I ask you to drop in on someone in a camp near Brierly's. Just drop in once, that's all, and file a little story. It's right near Lentone, Vermont Is that too much to ask?"

"I knew it! There is a joker somewhere. Just drop in once and file a little story. You've got a correspondent up there, for a little story. If it's a big story, the A.P. will get it or the paper can send a man up there. What the hell do you want to spoil my vacation for?"

"But this isn't a story, Jimmy. It's got point about it that makes it a swell feature story, mebbe a fine human interest yarn, see. And it won't interfere with you at all."

"But—"

Hite's strong teeth clenched his corn cob pipe, his jaw jutted out like a crag; his eyebrows bristled.

"Say, what the hell is all this yappin' about. You pampered pets give me a large pain. I'm askin' you to do somethin'. Either you do it or you don't. Somebody told you you're a star reporter and you believe it. You're developin' a temperament, like a prima donna. I'm payin' you a compliment by giving you a swell feature story; I'm sendin' you where you'd probably like to go anyway; I'm payin' your expenses for your vacation. I'm payin' for all the beer and ale you can guzzle and you balk. What the—"

Jimmy mentally ducked under the gathering storm. Hite was the only human being of whom he was afraid. A vacation up in Canada at the paper's expense wasn't so bad after all. As for the story, he could probably clean it up in a couple of hours, whatever it was. What could possibly happen up there that would take too much of his time? He interjected soothingly.

"Oh, all right, all right, I suppose I'll have to go. What's it all about?"

"No, you don't have to go. This is your vacation. This paper," virtuously, "doesn't impose on its men. I wouldn't dream of—"

"All right, chief, all right, I'll go. I don't have to go. But I'm just aching, just yearning to go. What is it?"

Hite glowered at him for a moment. His joke wasn't working out quite as planned. Still it would be swell to have Jimmy up there. There ought to be a great feature story in it anyway, particularly on July Fourth, and perhaps a swell follow-up the next day.

His ugly, rugged features returned to normal. He put away his pipe. He said, holding up the clipping:

"There's gonna be a reunion of fourteen men in the camp of Isaac Higginbotham, in Quebec, a few miles north of Lentone, Vermont. The fourteen are all that remain of a group of two hundred and thirty-seven, all of them veterans of the Civil War. Most of the two hundred and thirty-seven were Confederates, but there were a few Union men among them.

"They have a reunion every July 4th. They're mostly northern Confederates. There have been hints for the past twenty years or so that there's something in the group that's strange. It's never got out, because newspapermen never really got after it and covered their reunions. The reasons that first got them together are obscure, but one thing that holds them together is a Tontine insurance policy. It—"

"Tontine?" broke in Jimmy.

"Yeah, Tontine. Don't you know what Tontine insurance is?" he asked with mild surprise. "In Tontine insurance a group of persons get together, pay a lump sum or periodically, with the understanding that the sole survivor takes the whole pot. Understand?"

Jimmy nodded. He repressed a grin. His eyes had caught on Hite's desk a volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Volume XXIII, TAB-UPS. He would look at that volume himself later and learn all about Tontine insurance.

Hite continued:

"Well, Jimmy, among these fourteen survivors are some of the foremost men in the country, men who have served their country in various capacities, a few of them just ordinary poor men. Can't you see what a swell feature story this can be for the Fourth. Patriots all of them: Northern and Southern Confederates, Union men from the North and the South. Why Jimmy—"

Jimmy