“You know what you say, Dave. You say what you always say.”

Czar’s tone was bland, but a little flame of suspicion darted from Husack’s eyes. “Looka here, Czar—–”

Sid Kleet’s steely voice cut the tension. “That’s right, Dave. Give them the old blueplate. It went down all right in Juneau.” Deftly he extracted a typed sheet of paper from the brief case at his feet. “Here it is. Uh—‘This vast northern empire, now a Territory struggling toward manhood among the family of the United States, will someday achieve that adult goal and will stand forth, a great state among great states—one of the greatest, in my humble opinion, if it is allowed to mature. But that time has not yet come, it should not be forced—–’ ”

“Sounds all right,” Dave agreed.

Kleet thrust it toward him. “It’s as good as the day I wrote it. Better brush up on it. You should have done that on the plane.”

“I needed the sleep.”

“Never mind about that,” Czar said, gently. “Who is that girl, exactly, Dave?”

“You know as well as I do. What in hell’s got into you, Czar! All right, she’s crazy about Bay, too. That’s what gave me the idea. All right, she’s my assistant secretary, but no hanky-panky.”

“Mink coat.”

“Louise’s—or was. You know Etta Gurkin’s getting too old for these jaunts, and crotchety, of course Etta’s a cracker-jack secretary when it comes to business details and so on, but the going’s too rugged on trips for a woman her age, and Dina, it kind of rests the boys’ eyes just to look at her, know what I mean.”

“I didn’t ask you for a sketch of Etta Gurkin, I’ve known that old battle-ax for twenty-five years. Who is this girl exactly, Dave?”

“Oh. Well.” Dave Husack slumped in his chair, he took out the fine linen handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “She’s no tramp. Her folks are fine people, she comes from Kansas City. Anyway, she had two years of college and then she came east to New York, she wanted to be an actress, she did some modeling, and she had a couple of little jobs in the movies—what they call an extra, I guess it was—and then she went back to modeling, fashion modeling, that is”—hastily—“I went into this very thoroughly, she got to be one of the biggest models in the Paxton Agency, they only take the best, commercial photographs and so on, she rates fifty—seventy-five—a hundred dollars an hour, she could go back there tomorrow, she’s as nice and sweet a girl as you’d—–”

“Married at one time, wasn’t she?”

“She was. You wouldn’t want a kid who—–”

“Older than she looks, isn’t she?”

“Well, personally, looking at her—–”

A gently tolerant laugh from Czar. “Mm. Looking at her with my eyes, impersonally, the way you’d look at any strictly business proposition, not suspicious but not dazzled, either, why, what would you say? Twenty-seven, would you say? Twenty-eight, outside figure?”