"Nor I," says Mr. Ellins. "All I'm certain of is that it isn't sculpture, and that if I should read any more of it I'd be seasick. But in T. Virgil Bunn himself I have an active and personal interest. Anything to offer?"
"Not a glimmer," says I.
"And I suppose you could find nothing out?" he goes on.
"I could make a stab," says I.
"Make a deep one, then," says he, slippin' over a couple of tens for an expense fund.
And, say, I knew when Old Hickory begins by unbeltin' so reckless that he don't mean any casual skimmin' through club annuals for a report.
"What's the idea?" says I. "Is it for a financial rating or a regular dragnet of past performances?"
"Everything you can discover without taking him apart," says Old Hickory. "In short, I want to know the kind of person who can cause a fifty-five-year-old widow with grown sons to make a blinkety blinked fool of herself."
"He's a charmer, eh?" says I.
"Evidently," says Mr. Ellins. "Behold this inscription here, 'To dear Inez, My Lady of the Unfettered Soul—from Virgie.' Get the point, Son? 'To dear Inez'! Bah! Is he color blind, or what ails him? Of course it's her money he's after, and for the sake of her boys I'm going to block him. There! You see what I want?"