audibly. His adam's apple bobbed in his throat like a mouse in a sock.

How had the dark little man gotten out of the bar ahead of him?

Reggie didn't know and he had no inclination to wait and ask questions. With one last incredulous look over his shoulder he wheeled and loped across the lobby, down the marble steps, through the club's revolving doors and into the street.

He walked swiftly, mopping his forehead with his handkerchief.

The experience had been an unnerving one. When he reached the end of the block he hailed a cab and gave the driver the address of another bar.

As the cab rolled across the Loop Reggie settled back and gnawed nervously at his finger nails. Thoughtful meditation and analysis were not his strongest suits; in fact any thinking at all was an annoying chore to him, but he felt now that he had better bend his brain to the problem of the dark little man whom he'd seen at the club.

The chap was obviously interested in him, but why? There was no reasonable answer to that question, and there was no explanation to the way the little fellow had popped up outside the bar, when Reggie had seen him, a split-second before, inside the bar.

Reggie was still stewing over these matters when the cab came to a stop before a swanky glitter joint which catered to afternoon revellers and jitterbugs of both sexes.

Inside the smoky, dimly lighted den of din and discord Reggie forgot his troubles long enough to order a drink, his fifth of the afternoon. He was conscious of a vague buzzing between his ears and there was a pleasant mellow glow in the region of his solar plexus.

Had it not been for his disturbing experience at the Midland club, he would have been feeling very, very fine.

When his drink arrived he sipped it appreciatively and glanced about the crowded bar, looking for a familiar face. In one corner of the room he saw a tall young man in tweeds lounging against the wall with a drink in his hand. With a glad cry Reggie scrambled from his bar stool and lurched across the crowded floor, weaving his way with drunken dexterity through the jitterbugging maniacs.

"Hi!" he cried, when he reached the tweed-clad young man's side. "How've you been, Ricky? Have a drink?"

"Been 

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