Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/278

 have found this out for myself, but you divine it instantly. You're a clairvoyant. Now I'm going to find Billy Durgin. You've done the heavy work—you've discovered that something must be done. What we need now, I suppose, is a bright young detective to tell us what it is."

But Solon interrupted soothingly. "There, there, something must be done, and, of course, I'll do it."

"What will you do?"

Even then I think he did not know.

"We must use common sense in these matters," he said, to gain time, and narrowed his gaze for an interval of study. At last he drove the pen viciously to its hilt in the rutabaga, and almost shouted:—

"I'll go to see Mrs. Potts!"

Before I could again express my enthusiasm, reawakened by the felicitous adequacy of this device, he had seized his hat and was clattering noisily down the stairway.

Two hours later Solon bustled into my own office, whither I had fled to forget his manifest incompetence. His hat was well back, and he seemed to be inflated with secrecy. I remembered it was thus he had impressed me just previous to the coup that had relieved us of Potts. I knew at once that he was going to be mysterious with me.

"I am not to say a word to any one," I began, merely to show him that I was not dense.

He paused, apparently on the point of telling me as much. I saw that I had read him aright.