the black broadcloth knee of Ben Gascon and cocked his leering wooden face up at her. Above Gascon's tuxedo his slender, wide-lined face was a dusky red. His lips seemed tight, even while they stealthily formed words for Tom-Tom.

"Oh, Shanny," it seemed that Tom-Tom was crooning, in that ingratiating drawl that convulsed listeners from coast to coast, "don't you think that you and I might just slip away alone somewhere and—and—" The wooden head writhed around toward Gascon. "Get away, Gaspipe! Don't you see that I'm in conference with a very lovely lady? Can't you learn when you're not wanted?"

Shannon Cole leaned back in her own chair, sighing because she had not enough breath to laugh any more. "I never get enough of Tom-Tom," she vowed between gasps. "We've been broadcasting together for two years now, and he's still number one in my heart. Ben, how do you ever manage—"

"Shanny," drawled the voice that was Tom-Tom's, "this idiot Ben Gascon has something to say. He wants me to front for him—but why do I always have to do the talking while he gets the profit. Speak up, Gaspipe—who's got your tongue this time, the cat, or the cat?"

Shannon Cole looked at the ventriloquist, and suddenly stopped laughing. Her face was pale, as his had gone red. She folded her slender hands in her lap, and her eyes were all for Gascon, though it was as if Tom-Tom still spoke:

"I'll be John Alden," vowed Tom-Tom with shrill decision. "I'll talk up for this big yokel—I always do, don't I, Shanny? As Gaspipe's personal representative—engaged at enormous expense—I want to put before you a proposition. One in which I'm interested. After all, I should have a say as to who will be my—well, my step-mother—"

"It won't work!" came the sudden, savage voice of Ben Gascon.

Rising, he abruptly tossed Tom-Tom upon a divan. Shannon Cole, too, was upon her feet. "Ben!" she quavered. "Why, Ben!"

"I've done the most foolish thing a ventriloquist could do," he flung out.

"Well—if you were really serious, you didn't need to clown. You think it was fair to me?"

He shook his head. "Tom-Tom's done so much of my saucy talking for me these past years that I thought I'd use him to get out what I was afraid to tell you myself," he confessed wretchedly.

"Then you were afraid of me," 

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