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Where's de place?"

Dat I can't tell you until the day we're ready to pull off de job."

At four o'clock that afternoon Jimmy Torrance collapsed at his desk. The flu had

struck him as suddenly and as unexpectedly as it had attacked many of its

victims. Edith Hudson found him, and immediately notified Mr. Compton, with

the result that half an hour later Jimmy Torrance was in a small private hospital

in Park Avenue.

That night Bince got Murray over the phone. He told him of Jimmy's sickness.

He's balled up the whole plan," he complained. "We've either got to wait until he

croaks or is out again before we can go ahead, unless something else arises to

make it necessary to act before. I think I can hold things off, though, at this end,

all right."

For four or five days Jimmy was a pretty sick man. He was allowed to see no one,

but even if Jimmy had been in condition to give the matter any thought he would

not have expected to see any one, for who was there to visit him in the hospital,

who was there who knew of his illness, to care whether he was sick or well, alive

or dead? It was on the fifth day that Jimmy commenced to take notice of

anything. At Compton's orders he had been placed in a private room and given a

special nurse, and to-day for the first time he learned of Mr. Compton's kindness

and the fact that the nurse was instructed to call Jimmy's employer twice a day

and report the patient's condition.

Mighty nice of him," thought Jimmy, and then to the nurse: "And the flowers,

too? Does he send those?"

163

The Efficiency Expert