The soiled placer removed a cigarette butt from his mouth, and threw it on the floor with a gesture of extreme impatience.
"Your brother-in-law like hell!" he remarked, quite disregarding the presence of Miss Maitland in the background. "What kind of a fairy story are you trying to put across on me? I suppose you're claiming that Pendleton, the automobile man, is your brother-in-law. Well, he moved out about a month ago. The card hasn't been changed yet, but the firm in there now is a bunch of Kikes that make boys' pants—Lipper, Loeb, and Kahn. I saw their sign when I went up to get this order from Warbalowsky. Which of them did your sister marry?"
Mr. Cuyler was momentarily discomfited, but his presence of mind almost immediately returned.
"All three," he said calmly to his excited adversary. "All three. You just saw the sign, you say. You didn't meet any of them personally, did you? Well, you couldn't have."
"Why, what do you mean?" asked the astonished placer, pausing in the act of lighting a fresh cigarette.
"Why, Phil," said Mr. Cuyler, kindly, "my sister married a man named Reginald Whitney. His name isn't his fault. And he is a manufacturer of boys' pants. Now, Phil, you understand local conditions as well as nearly any one I know, and I ask you: What chance of success would a boys' pants manufacturer named Reginald Whitney have? Absolutely none. He therefore operates under the name of Lipper, Loeb, and Kahn, and I don't mind saying he is doing very well, but I hope he won't stay long in that building, for some of that bunch of crooks under him—I don't mean Warbalowsky, you understand—will probably touch off the place some night and leave him with a total loss and only forty per cent insurance to value."
While this controversy was going on, Smith, watching his companion shrewdly, saw the light of real interest for the first time dawn in her eye. And when Cuyler finished, she laughed outright, and the two returned to the elevator the better for one shared amusement.
"I suppose Mr. Cuyler was—embroidering the truth a little?" queried
Helen, comprehendingly.
"He never had a sister in his life!" nodded her escort, cheerfully.
"I'm afraid, Mr. Smith," Helen said as they regained the top floor, "that I don't really understand the first principles of fire insurance well enough to appreciate what you have shown me. It's a humiliating admission, but I must make it. I don't believe you began near enough the bottom—with the elementary, one-syllable things."