The apparent intimacy which had sprung up between twenty-five-dollar Smith and the reserved, almost hermit-like Banneker was the subject of curious and amused commentary in The Ledger office.  Mallory hazarded a humorous guess that Banneker was tutoring Smith in the finer arts of journalism, which was not so far amiss as its proponent might have supposed.

The Great Heat broke several evenings later in a drench of rain and wind.  This, being in itself important news, kept Banneker late at his writing, and he had told his host not to wait, that he would join him on the yacht sometime about midnight.  So Smith had gone on alone.

The next morning Tommy Burt, lounging into the office from an early assignment, approached the City Desk with a twinkle far back in his lively eyes.

“Hear anything of a shoot-fest up in the Bad Lands last night?” he asked.

“Not yet,” replied Mr. Greenough.  “They’re getting to be everyday occurrences up there.  Is it on the police slips, Mr. Mallory?”

“No.  Nothing in that line,” answered the assistant, looking over his assortment.

“Police are probably suppressing it,” opined Burt.

“Have you got the story?” queried Mr. Greenough.

“In outline.  It isn’t really my story.”

“Whose is it, then?”

“That’s part of it.”  Tommy Burt leaned against Mallory’s desk and appeared to be revolving some delectable thought in his mind.

“Tommy,” said Mallory, “they didn’t open that committee meeting you’ve been attending with a corkscrew, did they?”

“I’m intoxicated with the chaste beauties of my story, which isn’t mine,” returned the dreamily smiling Mr. Burt.  “Here it is, boiled down.  Guest on an anchored yacht returning late, sober, through the mist.  Wharf-gang shooting craps in a pier-shed.  They size him up and go to it; six of ’em.  Knives and one gun:  maybe more.  The old game:  one asks for the time.  Another sneaks up behind and gives the victim the elbow-garrote.  The rest rush him.  Well, they got as far as the garrote.  Everything lovely and easy.  Then Mr. Victim introduces a few specialties.  Picks a gun from somewhere around his shirt-front, shoots the garroter over his shoulder; kills the man in front, who is at him with a stiletto, ducks a couple of shots from the gang, and lays out two more of ’em.  The rest take to the briny.  Tally:  two dead, one dying, one wounded, Mr. Guest walks to the shore end, meets two patrolmen, and turns in his gun.  ‘I’ve done a job for you,’ says he.  So they pinch him.  He’s in the police station, incomunicado.”

Throughout the narrative, Mr. Greenough had thrown in little, purring interjections of “Good!  Good!”—­“Yes.”—­“Ah! good!” At the conclusion Mallory exclaimed!

“Moses!  That is a story!  You say it isn’t yours?  Why not?”

“Because it’s Banneker’s.”

“Why?”

“He’s the guest with the gun.”