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 could not be a common brawler. Controlling himself and his voice with an effort that was obvious he urged: "Hornblower, will you please go?" And himself opened a door leading directly into the hall.

Hornblower, huge human squid, went out.

"The skunk!" remarked Harrington, quite inelegantly, and threw open the window.

Henry lunched that day with the gang at Ben's Beanery. The Beanery was a more elegant place to lunch than the name suggested and the gang was a coterie that styled itself "The Live Wire League." The talk today was all of Billie Boland, and Harrington, after listening with a bored air, thought he was leaving the whole subject behind him when he sauntered out; but to his astonishment found a sort of blurred Miss Billie Boland had come with him and seemed intent upon spending the afternoon there in his office. That was odd. It was even annoying!

At length, when a face, indistinct but beautiful, stared up at him from a page of the Pacific Reporter, Henry closed the vohmme upon it with an impatient bang, put on his hat and dropped casually down the stairs, meaning to smoke a cigar and take the air for half an hour. But as he gained the street, his attention was attracted by a voice and a crowd on the corner of that dock which was visited every thirty minutes by the Salmon Queen. This was the corner across from the bank, the corner upon which were the billboard and the lumber pile which Hornblower had pointed out. To Harrington's amused scorn the shyster was actually there now upon the lumber pile, a mountainous, gesticulating, vociferating figure. With a lath in his hand he pointed from time to time to the billboard on which