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 fairly accurate information of events up to the shooting; they do not seem to know of that; they know something happened night before last, but they have not yet learned what."

He smiled again in reassurance, but Marjorie gasped and went weak. Rinderfeld straightened and waved his hand before him as though brushing away a fly.

"Think of them as flies, my dear young lady," he said. "Flies cause troubles, do they not? Do they not?" he repeated and, as he evidently meant to force an answer, Marjorie nodded.

"Exactly," Rinderfeld agreed. "Now, where are they to be found in their season? Everywhere outdoors; is that not so?"

When again he waited, again Marjorie nodded.

"Now what do we do about them? Do we go out to exterminate them? No; we screen against them, knowing if we keep them out of our houses we are safe. Only if they come in are they capable of causing us trouble. That is the way with these fly humans who know what we might wish they do not; keep them out and, no matter what they know or say, they cannot harm you. It is as simple as that."

"Of course you understand," said Marjorie, "that is not quite clear to me."

Rinderfeld nodded. "I am going to ask you, for a few moments to think accurately or, at least, to follow me while I assign to the different items of conduct and reputation the exact values which they possess—in distinction from the values which we like to pretend we hold them at. You read the papers, of course."

"Yes."

"You cannot have failed then to have become familiar with the fate of a certain prominent gentleman in New