For what remained of the afternoon after Tarbell went away, Sprague sat in the writing-room and wrote letters, sealing and addressing the last one just as Maxwell came over to go to dinner with him. At table there were plenty of uncut back-numbers in the way of college reminiscences to be threshed over, and Sprague carefully kept the talk in this innocuous field until after they had left the dining-room to go for a smoke on the loggia porch. When the cigars were alight, Maxwell would no longer be choked off.
“Anything new in the wire-devil business, Calvin?” he asked.
“I’ve turned the case over to Tarbell, as I promised. I’m through with my part of it.”
“What’s that!” ejaculated the superintendent. “You’ve got your man?”
“Tarbell will get him—most probably before we go to bed to-night. He’s a fine young fellow, that reformed cowboy of yours, Dick. I like him.”
Maxwell was still gasping. “You’re a wonder, Calvin—a latter-day wizard! Good Heavens! Do you realize that we’ve been working on this thing for a month? And you’ve cleaned it up in a day!”
The chemistry expert was smiling good-naturedly.
“Perhaps I came at a fortuitous moment, and had exceptional advantages,” he demurred.
“But are you sure?” demanded Maxwell soberly.
“So sure that if your ‘devil’ had caused any loss of life in his monkeyings, I could go into court and hang him.”