Henry Gottrell presented his daughter.
"She always looked like a Swede," said the big man, "so we call her Thelma."
"And Mr. Gard," she bubbled forth, "I have so wanted to know what a writer did when he goes for an interview. May I stay and see?"
"It will destroy the romantic illusion if you do," said Gard. "Are you willing to pay the price?"
"I can't believe that," she said. "Do let me see how it is done! Don't leave out a single thing."
"The interviewer begins," said the special agent, "by seating himself, as I am doing, in an uncomfortable chair which has been arranged with the idea in mind of preventing him from staying too long. The gentleman being interviewed always reaches into the right-hand drawer of his desk, as your father is doing, and produces a box of very excellent cigars. Then the interviewer explains the idea that is on his mind that requires elucidation. Has the man being interviewed anything on hand, already prepared, that covers the ground. Maybe he has made a speech at a convention, or something of that sort. The idea is to save labor for both. Mr. Gottrell is now looking for the report of his testimony before the committee on tariff revision. He will probably produce three reprints that will contain much matter that I want. I ask if he will provide a conversational escort to conduct me over one of his sugar ships, if I may talk to his captains. He agrees. You see him doing it. The interview is at an end. The foundation has been laid for a romance on 'sugar ships,' the same having a background of fact."
"That is splendid," exclaimed Miss Gottrell, "because it does so easily a thing that looks so hard. It does not spoil an illusion at all. It is wonderfully clever."
It was in this way that Special Agent Gard got an opportunity to go most carefully over the docks, through the warehouses, into the ships of the Continental Refining Company. It was in this way that he was enabled to ask many questions that might have aroused suspicion had he been there in any other guise than that of a writing man. It was in this way that he was able to observe rather carefully every process of the transfer of a cargo of sugar through the customs house at which the Federal Government takes its toll.