"It isn't spelt like it."
Pinney made a note of it. "I'll get a head-line out of that. I take my own wherever I find it, as George Washington said."
"Your own, you thief!" said Maxwell, with sardonic amusement. "You don't know what the word means."
"I can make a pretty good guess, thank you," said Pinney, putting up his book.
"Do you want to trade?" Maxwell asked, after his tea came, and he had revived himself with a sip or two.
"Any scoops?" asked Pinney, warily. "Anything exclusive?"
"Oh, come!" said Maxwell. "No, I haven't; and neither have you. What do you make mysteries for? I've been over the whole ground, and so have you. There are no scoops in it."
"I think there's a scoop if you want to work it," said Pinney, darkly.
Maxwell received the vaunt with a sneer. "You ought to be a detective—in a novel." He buttered his toast and ate a little of it, like a man of small appetite and invalid digestion.
"I suppose you've interviewed the family?" suggested Pinney.