“Excuse me,” he said, “but I've got something to say that I think you gentlemen oughter hear. If you thought those two--Witherbones, or whatever his name is, and my late employer, Henry Betts--if you all thought those two were strangers to one another you were mistaken--that's all. Two weeks ago I saw a letter on Betts' desk signed by this man Witherbee--if that's his name. And Tuesday when Betts told me he was goin' to sell out, I remembered it.” The major was the first to get his voice back; and it was shaky with rage and--other emotions. “You--you saw us all there Tuesday morning,” he shouted, “didn't you? And when Betts told you he was going to sell and you remembered about Witherbee why didn't you have sense enough to put two and two together?” “I did have sense enough to put two and two together,” answered Cassius Poindexter in hurt tones. “That's exactly what I did.” “Then why in the name of Heaven didn't you come to us--to me--and tell us?” demanded the major. “Well, sirs,” said the intruder, “I was figurin' on doin' that very thing, but it sort of slipped out of my mind. You see, I've been thinkin' right stiddy lately about an invention that I'm workin' on at odd times--I'm perfectin' a non-refillble bottle,” he explained--“and somehow or other this here other matter plum' escaped me.” The door closed upon the inventor. Stunned into silence, they sat mute for a long, ghastly half minute. Doctor Lake was the first to speak: “If could afford it,” he said softly--“if at present I could afford it I'd put a dynamite bomb under that gashouse and blow it up! And I'd do it anyhow,” he went on, warming to his theme, “if I was only right certain of blowing up that idiot and his non-refillable bottle along with it!” Malley, of the Sun, was doing the hotel run this night. He came up to the room clerk's wicket at the desk of the Royal. “Say, Mac,” he hailed, “what's the prospect? So far, all I've got is one rubber magnate from South America--a haughty hidalgo with an Irish name and a New England accent, who was willing to slip me a half-column interview providing I'd run in the name of his company eight or nine times--him, and an Oklahoma Congressman, with the makings of a bun, and one of Sandusky, Ohio's well-known and popular merchant princes, with a line of talk touching on the business revival in the Middle West. If that's not slim pickings I don't want a cent! Say, help an honest working lad out--can't you?” This appeal moved the room clerk. “Let's see now,” he said, and ran a highly polished fingernail down a long column of names. Halfway down the finger halted. “Here's copy for you, maybe,” he said. “The name is Priest--William Pitman Priest is the way he wrote it. He got in here this morning, an old-time Southerner; and already he's got every coon bellhop round the place fighting for a chance to wait on him. He's the real thing all right, I guess--looks it and talks it too. You ought to be able to have some fun with him.”