“George is in on this game with you?” I asked.

“Why do you want to know?”

“I want to,” I said; and she told me, “No; we’re just going on together.”

“He has a lay of his own, then?”

She avoided direct answer to that. “Well, he’s still a young man,” she said. “He hasn’t retired; so naturally you’d suppose so, wouldn’t you?”

“All right. Now as well as I can guess, old “Iron Age”—you know who I mean?”

She nodded.

I went on. “He’s aboard because George is. He knows him; but he doesn’t know you. I’m here to find out about you. What shall I tell him?”

“That we’re getting off at Cleveland, please.”