"Well," Marc said with false heartiness, "today is the day, Miss Quirtt. Will you please bring me the layouts for the Reece campaign? I'm going to submit them this afternoon. You have the key to that file, I believe?" He tried hard not to hear her answering rasp, and heaved a sigh of relief as he heard the door close; the signal that this horribly jarring note had once more, at least momentarily, gone out of his life. When she returned, it was not quite so bad. This time, he had the contents of the brief case to distract him. It was important that the layouts be complete. His hands ran over them almost lovingly--a full year's advertising material for the most sensational medical product ever to be offered to a suffering public. * * * * * Old Gregory Reece really had something this time; a cure-all to end all cure-alls, and one that was the real McCoy into the bargain. It did everything that the old-time medicine doctor claimed, and a good deal more, as well. And that was the very thing that made the drug's initial presentation to the public so difficult. It was too wonderful to be true. Reece had been cagy in asking all the agencies to submit advertising campaigns. That way, he would be certain to get just the right publicity slant, since this was easily to be the largest account to be had by any agency, ever. It would "make" the agency that got it, and quite likely break the ones that didn't. The firm handling this Reece product would be able to pick and choose the rest of its clients, and Marc was well aware that if the Mayes Agency, his most formidable competitors, beat him out on it, they would hesitate considerably less than a second to pick and choose the very accounts which he, himself, was now handling. However, he was not disturbed. The campaign that his boys had turned out was just the ticket--honest, imaginative and convincing. Besides that, he was already handling a number of other Reece products with considerable success. Confidently, he slid the material back into the brief case and rose from his chair. It was then that he noticed that the room was still haunted by the spectre of the outer office. "Is there something else, Miss Quirtt?" he asked stiffly. "Yes, sir. Mrs. Pillsworth called to say that she would meet you here for lunch." "You told her that I would be out, didn't you?" "No sir." "What?" "I didn't tell her, sir." Miss Quirtt shrilled half-wittedly. "She always makes a fuss about those things. She always thinks that you...." "I wasn't aware that Mrs. Pillsworth was causing you so much trouble," Marc cut in sarcastically. "I'll have to speak to her about it. In the meantime, Miss Quirtt, call her back and say that I'll be tied up in some very important business during the lunch hour."