"I just been
hammered meller with his, and dragged into his room, and shut up, and
scared stiff, about twenty minutes ago."
"_The devil you say!_" exploded Mr. Minturn.
"No, I said Chaffner!" insisted Mickey. "Chaffner of the _Herald_. I'm
going to write a poetry piece for his front page, some day soon now. I
been selling his paper all my life."
"And so you're a friend of Chaffner's?"
"Oh not bosom and inseparable," explained Mickey. "I haven't seen so awful
much of him, but when I do, we get along fine."
"And he said----?" questioned Mr. Minturn.
"Just what I been afraid of all the time," said Mickey. "That these
investigations at times got into places you didn't _look_ for, and made
awful trouble; and that my boss _might_ get it with his."
"Mickey, you will promise me something?" asked Mr. Minturn. "You see I
started Mr. Bruce on this trying to help him to a case that would bring
him into prominence, so if it should go wrong, it's in a way through me.
If you think Douglas is unlike himself, or worried, will you tell me? Will
you?"
"Why surest thing you know!" cried Mickey.
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