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214 oak dining-rooms; flappers; brokers; shares. He wished he had thought to chew an unlighted cigar in this resplendent chariot. There seemed to be almost a public demand for it. Certain things were expected of a man!

"Be here at four-thirty," he directed.

And Paul, his fellow, glancing up along the twenty-two stories of the office building, was impressed. He considered it probable that the bored young man owned this building. "The guys that have gits!" thought Paul.

Bean was preposterously working once more, playing the part of a cog on the wheel. Another day, it seemed, of that grotesque nonsense, even after the world's Greatest Pitcher had sat not twenty feet from him the night before, eating raspberry ice. But events could not long endure that strain. Before the day was over Breede would undoubtedly "fire" him, with two or three badly chosen words; actually go through the form of discharging a man who had once ruled all Egypt with a kindly but an iron hand!

Of course, the fellow was unconscious of this, as he still must be of the rare joke the flapper was exquisitely holding over his head. His demeanour toward Bean betrayed no recognition of shares or pitchers or big red cars, nor of the ever-impending change in their relationship. He dictated fragments of English words, and Bean reconstructed them with the cunning of a Cuvier. He felt astute, robust, and disrespectful. Just one wrong word from Breede and all would be over between