“She didn’t break the record this time,” said Sutton.

A somewhat pensive look came into Jimmy’s eyes.

“She came much too quick for me,” he said. “I don’t see why they want to rip along at that pace,” he went on hurriedly. “I like to have a chance of enjoying the sea air.”

“I know that sea air,” murmured Mifflin.

Jimmy looked up quickly.

“What are you babbling about, Arthur?”

“I said nothing,” replied Mifflin suavely.

“What did you think of the show to-night, Jimmy?” asked Raikes.

“I liked it. Arthur was fine. I can’t make out, though, why all this incense is being burned at the feet of the cracksman. To judge by some of the plays they produce now, you’d think that a man had only to be a successful burglar to become a national hero. One of these days we shall have Arthur playing Charles Peace to a cheering house.”

“It is the tribute,” said Mifflin, “that boneheadedness pays to brains. It takes brains to be a successful cracksman. Unless the grey matter is surging about in your cerebrum, as in mine, you can’t hope——”

Jimmy leaned back in his chair and spoke calmly, but with decision.

“Any man of ordinary intelligence,” he said, “could break into a house.”

Mifflin jumped up and began to gesticulate. This was heresy.

“My dear old son, what absolute——”

“I could,” said Jimmy, lighting a cigarette.

There was a roar of laughter and approval. For the past few weeks, during the rehearsals of Love, the Cracksman, Arthur Mifflin had disturbed the peace at the Strollers’ with his theories on the art of burglary. This was his first really big part, and he had soaked himself in it. He had read up the literature of burglary. He had talked with detectives. He had expounded his views nightly to his brother Strollers, preaching the delicacy and difficulty of cracking a crib till his audience had rebelled. It charmed the Strollers to find Jimmy, obviously of his own initiative, and not to be suspected of 

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