"What are we going to do now? We can't run that car into the other stall, because it's too big. It will take all night to build another stall, and no doubt the inspector is waiting up there with a squad of cops, hoping something will happen. After all, we're costing LaBombard a million bucks." His eyes opened suddenly. "I'll bet he sent the woman down here to spy on us." A car came down the ramp and went into the reducing stall, and Slim automatically set the dial. * * * * * The telephone rang, and I could hear the voice from where I stood. "The building inspector wants his car." "Coming right up," Slim said. Then he looked at me. I looked at him. "Get that safe open," he jerked out. I dived for it. I was spinning the combination when I heard the voices. The building inspector was riding the ramp down to the basement. Then I heard more voices and saw the bottom half of two cops and Richard LaBombard on the freight elevator. Slim hissed to me. "Make it snappy!" I was trying to, but I couldn't get the thing open. Five thousand dollars in that safe and I couldn't get it. I spun the dial frantically and started over. But now the ramp was filled with people. The cops were getting off the elevator. I jumped up and ran over to where Steve was standing. The building inspector was staring bug-eyed at his huge car. Somebody went around the stall and saw the six-inch car crawling out. Somebody else took hold of the stall and shook it. "Where's my car? What's going on?" Well, a mob is a funny thing. In about half a minute there were eight hundred people in that basement, and all of them tearing apart the reducing stall. Slim and I hesitated no longer. We ran up the stairway and sifted out through the crowd.... * * * * * At three o'clock in the morning Slim said to me, "You think that brakeman will kick us off?" The brakeman came to us, sitting up there in the fresh night breeze on top of a carload of lettuce going east from California. He looked at me and then, as if he didn't believe it, he held his lantern up and examined my head all the way around. "Why don't you go back to the farm? This ain't no life for you," he growled. "I am considering that very seriously," I said with as much dignity as I could. THE END