Slim Coleman looked up from a work-bench covered with wires, tubes, condensers, and all kinds of electrical gadgets. He had a soldering-iron poised above something that looked like a forty-eight-tube radio. He had deep, deep brown eyes that always looked through everybody, but Slim was a hundred-per-cent. In fact, it was his loyalty that had us behind the eight-ball now. If he had dissolved partnership instead of offering to pay the damages the time I fell from a second-story window and went through a skylight into a whole tableful of expensive orchids--but no, Slim paid it all--twenty-two hundred dollars before he got through, because the cold air ruined a lot more orchids. And I hadn't even gotten the evidence I was after. (No, it was just happenstance that I fell from the bedroom window of a movie star.) "What luck?" said Slim in his husky voice. "I served them, but look, Slim, I hope you get that Brain-Finder going pretty quick. Not that I mind crawling under the length of three pullman cars and cutting my ankles on the cinders to serve divorce papers on Tom Ellingbery, who's worth a million. Not that I mind doing all that for a measly five bucks, but when I have to come through the sidewalk in the summertime to duck the landlord--" Coleman's face lighted up. "The Brain-Finder is ready for a tryout," he said. "Shall I show you yourself the night of July the Fourth?" Well, partly because I guess I didn't have much real faith in the gadget, I said "Okay," and went to get the four ham sandwiches and the coffee in a milk-bottle out of my coat-pockets. That was why I couldn't take off the coat when I put on the coveralls--for fear of spilling the coffee. Then I groaned and ran for the desk. There was a brown puddle spreading on the desk and soaking up my coat. I very nearly said "Damn!" "I've got your brain wave-length," Slim was saying. I started mopping up with my handkerchief while I hung the coat up to dry. "Now, all I have to do is--come here, Doc!" I put the sandwiches on the bench in front of him, but for once Slim didn't even reach. He looked at me and his deep-set eyes were burning. "We are going to be the greatest private investigators in history," he said. "In fact, we'll _make_ history. Doc, we'll be the most important men in America." I should have been more enthusiastic, but things were going so badly--"I don't care," I told him, "about being a great man, if I can just quit ducking the landlord. I want to walk in under his nose and not be scared of him. If you want to fill my cup to overflowing, just let me use that thing long enough to get something on him." * * * * *