get a clue and doesn't know a darned thing any more than we do. What he needs is a tub and a shave. Now, let him get it."
At the desk a headline in the evening paper caught the young attorney's eye—"Mysterious Disappearance of Henry Harrington!" He gazed at it with a smile and a vain feeling.
"That's the first time anybody ever cared whether I disappeared, or not," he chuckled to the clerk as the latter handed him his key, and made for the stairway.
But Titmarsh was too quick for him. Titmarsh was editor and leading descriptive writer on the Edgewater Blade. He buttonholed unerringly; but Henry's cunning set forth the details most sketchily against a background of calculating voids. Titmarsh, however, was a very modern reporter. He saw the "story" first and the facts second. He perceived dramatic values even in the voids and legged it for his office, organizing a column as he ran.
"Bad contusion. . . . Temporary shock. . . . No fracture. . . . By Jupiter! But you're tough, Henry. They must have hit you with a railroad tie!" This was Dr. Austin's verdict, as he clipped away blood-matted hair and took stitches.
Bathed and shaved and fed, Harrington met Scanlon, and was tendered a retainer of five thousand dollars and a contract which provided a salary of five hundred dollars per month, with generous per diem for appearances. Henry had a feeling that he was being enormously overpaid, but, understanding that he was to represent Mr. Boland in other than the Shell Point interests, did not demur for a moment. These were shrewd men; and they must not be permitted to infer
