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 "but I've long felt that a boy of your abilities should be seeking a larger field. In a few years you'll be thinking of marrying. I know, of course, that it can't have entered your mind yet." Pritchard flushed. "You're still too young—and unable to support a wife. But you must prepare for such things while there's time, so as not to be taken unawares. To marry such a girl as a boy of your character would naturally aspire to you'll have to be something more than a stenographer." He was reaching for his pen. "I'll be here late, but you needn't come back. I'll see you in the morning."

Pritchard folded and refolded the letter. "Well," he said at last.

"And put the catch on the door as you go out," Warren dismissed him.

He knew that if Pritchard consulted his family they would use every argument to persuade him to accept the higher salary. He knew also that Pritchard would have to go home to dinner before he saw Meta. That is what he had been calculating when he glanced at his watch before asking, "Have you consulted your family?" And if he was practising some duplicity, he had the excuse that Pritchard had begun that game.

He went back to his work on the direct primary bills. Every now and then he was interrupted by messages from Teague, the detective, who 'phoned