“Yes, my boy, I can see you’re ‘only a kid.’ Not so much because of your appearance, but because you won’t listen to reason. Now you listen to me.” Poodle felt that Mr. Jolls was getting rather angry. “I _know_, from inside sources, the Army Board is going to throw out the Priest aeroplane entirely, because it isn’t practical for use in war.” “You’re a liar,” Hike was heard to state, wearily and most impolitely. “Will you listen to me, or not?” “Oh, yes, I suppose I’ll have to—tied up like this. And it was you that made ’em tie me again. I won’t forget that.” When he heard the words “tied up,” Poodle’s flesh prickled coldly all over. Hike—_tied up_! He felt that any punishment he could devise for Jolls would be too easy. Well, he’d try to hit Jolls in the pocketbook. That would hurt more than anything else! Meanwhile, Jolls was continuing: “I wish you could understand me, Griffin. I don’t believe I’ve ever admired any young man so much as I admired you when I heard of the magnificent way in which you handled that rotten Priest tetrahedral in your cross-country flight. Why, I want you to be one of my chief aviators, my boy. At a great big salary. I’ve met your father—I have the keenest—” “You let my father alone, will you?” snapped Hike. “—the keenest admiration for him, and I hate to see his son mixed up with a swindler and fake inventor like Priest. Why, my boy, what few things there are that’re good about Priest’s tetrahedral are _stolen_! Stolen from other devices that are patented. Mr. Priest will land in jail inside of one week—” “That’s another lie,” Hike remarked. “It is, eh? Well, do you want to go to jail with him? Er no, I’ve got something better for you. Now listen.” Mr. Jolls made his voice to be very soft and purring. “If you’ll just sit down and write a little note like this, I’ll give you a thousand dollars—in coin. Write like this: ‘My _dear_ Mr. Priest: I have decided that the tetrahedral is taking up too much of my time, and I shall have to drop it. You can run the thing yourself. Also, I know that you have stolen all your patents, and I don’t want anything to do with you, or your thefts, I might add.’ “Now a note like that won’t hurt anything—you must see that yourself—if he _hasn’t_ stolen them; and, if he has, why it will be only just. If the cap fits, let him put it on.” “Sure,” Hike could be heard sniffing, “it won’t hurt him—merely break his heart—just when he’s getting over the feeling that the whole world is conspiring against him. He’s pretty fond of me. All that note will do will be to send him out into the mountains again, and probably make him give up the game entirely.”