"Gee whiz!" the fat man panted. "This hill is something fierce. It's only your sudden dash into the limelight that drags me up here."
"You behold"—Bristow softened his statement with a deprecating laugh—"Mr. Lawrence Bristow, a finished, honest-to-heaven detective, a criminologist."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm going to make it my profession. I'm starting out as a professional detective."
Overton burst into bubbling laughter.
"That's rich!" he exclaimed. "You'd never in the world make good at it. Why, Bristow, you're lame; you've a crooked nose; that heavy, overhanging lip of yours—those things would enable any crook to spot you a mile off." He laughed again. "I'd like to see you shadowing some foxy second-story worker!"
"I said 'a consulting detective'," Bristow corrected him. "That shadowing business is for the hired man, the square-toed, bull-necked cops. I'll work only as the directing head, the brains of the investigations."
"Oh, that's different," said Overton, at once conciliatory. "That's nearer real sense. Big money in it, isn't there?"
"Yes. I'm not an eleemosynary institution yet."
Overton mopped his fat cheeks.