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 his store for insurance, but killed the firemen who tried to save his property. But every man I want makes an excuse so he can hurry back to the bank or his wholesale house."

"Do you blame them, Boston?" asked Ellison genially. "You've got to admit you're not going to put on a very peppy show for them, are you? Just a couple of middle-aged firemen's widows and evidence that the firemen found banisters wrapped with gasolined cotton. You can't say yourself that's much of a show."

"Show!" ejaculated Calvin.

"When we stage a good show," continued Ellison, imperturbably, "such as the Ketlar case, then you'll see real civic spirit. You'll be turning talesmen away; nobody called in that jury will bother about the bank that day. They'll be paying premiums for preferred places in the panel to be in the box beside the Royle girl at the big moment when she's on the stand, dolled to her best, and Elmen has had her tell her prepared story and he says to you, "Take the witness," and you start the cross-examination to make her tell what she really was to Ketlar and what she really did with him on the night he shot his wife."

Calvin started and he thought Ellison noticed it. He fingered in his pocket the Royle girl's list of books and her money while he wondered whether Ellison somehow had heard of the beef-pie episode with the Royle girl in the automat.

"I happened across the Royle girl last night," he commented tentatively.

"Oh, did you? Where?"

"Up by Wilson Avenue," replied Calvin, deciding that he might dispense with mention of the automat. "I timed a walk over the route which she'll claim she followed that night."