A figure approached their table and sat down at the empty chair without receiving an invitation. "Did I hear something about the Anti-Newspaper League?" the man demanded, chuckling softly. He was tall and gaunt but well-tanned, the whites of his eyes very bright against the skin of his face. He had a long, sad nose which drooped mournfully almost to his upper lip, mitigating the effect of his smile. He was Weaver Wainwright, ace reporter of the _World_. * * * * * "We're just a couple of subversives, Mr. Wainwright," Tracy said. "So that's why the _Star-Times_ is filling its pages with wrongos these days. How do you do, McLeod?" "Never felt better. Ought to live to be a hundred, at least. Can we get you something?" "As a matter of fact, I've just had lunch. Brandy might help my sluggish liver, though." "Brandy it is," said McLeod, and gave the new order to their waiter when he arrived with a pair of Gibsons. "According to what I read in the papers, the _World's_ thinking of starting a Tong War with us." McLeod hid his impulse to smile by making a conventional toast to Tracy. He wondered how much his unexpected candor had unnerved Wainwright and decided to study the reporter's reaction carefully. But Wainwright merely grinned, making the upper lip all but disappear and the nose become more prominent. "At least you read a good newspaper," he said. "I don't think it's fair for you to say we had war in mind, McLeod. Nothing of the sort. Our Prognostication division merely indicated that a certain well-known opposition newsman was going to meet with an unfortunate accident next week. While prognostication is pretty reliable--especially coming from a good newspaper--it's hardly the last word. Ah, here's my brandy." And he began to sip and stare over the rim of his glass at Tracy. "Nice stay in Europe?" McLeod wanted to know. Under the circumstances, Wainwright's composure had been admirable. "Fair. But then, you read the papers." "You mean that business about Yugoslavia and France?" "That's right. Your man--What's his name, Kitrick?--thought there would be peace. He's wrong, you know. All you have to do is touch a spark to the right fuse in the Balkans, I always said. Kitrick was trying to put the fire out by spitting." "Wayne Kitrick didn't think there was any fire to put out," Tracy told the _World_ reporter. "As of now, there isn't." "Give it some time," Wainwright promised. "You see, the President of Yugoslavia was indiscreet in his youth, most indiscreet. With elections approaching there, he had the alternative of--well, you know what a newspaper can do to a man of position who's been indiscreet. Drink to it?"