His eyes swept the compartment to include the others in the too evident geniality of their glance.
"Now that we're all acquainted," he ventured—"how about a little game of seven-up, just to pass away the time? How about you, dad?"
Thus flippantly he addressed the ruddy-faced, middle-aged gentleman in gray tweeds, whose attention was apparently concentrated upon the lengthening ash of his cigar.
With enthusiasm undampened by the curtness of the latter's refusal, he turned to the remaining passenger—a youth upon whose lip sprouted a tenderly pruned mustache, so obviously new that it looked itchy.
"How about you, captain?" The top-heavy youth closed his magazine and unlocked a brain-cell.
"I don't mind." He ostentatiously consulted a very gold watch. "Must be in Chicago this evening," he muttered quite audibly, pulling a ten, twent, thirt frown that caused his labial foliage to rustle with importance.
He drew from his pocket a card upon which the ink was scarcely dry and handed it to the effervescent Johnson, who read aloud:
Mr. LINCOLN S. TARBEL
Municipal Investigator
"You see," explained its owner, "it has reached the ears of the managing editor of my paper in South Bend that vice in various forms flourishes in Chicago! Thereupon he immediately sent for me and ordered a sweeping investigation."