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 voice. Said door opens, and allows a tall, thin guy of about thirty autumns to ease into the room, remove a pair of yellow gloves, and regard me with a cold and fishy eye. He's wearin' a pair of glasses which looks like spare rims for a flivver, and was dressed in what was like as not the height of fashion somewheres, only I don't know where. A gold-headed cane completes the layout. His openin' remark is a cough. I easily ducked that, and he followed it up with: "As I understand it, I am speaking to the—er—ah—manager of Kane Halli—of Kid Roberts?"

"You are awarded the chiffon ice pick!" I says. "What of it?"

"May I sit down for a moment?" he remarks, glancin' about the room and lettin' forth a slight shudder when he sees the forty-six colored bath robe I had bought for the Kid.

"What d'ye want?" I hollers pleasantly. "Get to the point and be done with it!"

He presents me with a frown and slides into a chair. "I shall get to the point, you may rest assured," he says. "I am a—ah—a friend of Hall—of Kid Roberts, and I have some information to impart to him that—ah—that is so vital to his future welfare that, in order to deliver it to him personally, I have missed my boat connections to Paris."

"That's tough!" I says. "What d'ye want me to do—bust into sobs? The Kid ain't here. Tell me the bad news, and I'll slip it to him the second he comes in."

"That is impossible!" he says, very chilly. "If you are really a—ah—a friend of Roberts, you will find him for me at once!"