Then he leaned back and laughed without restraint. "What on earth...?" Tydvil began.
"The red-head wins," gasped Nicholas at last.
Tydvil looked at him bewildered. "How--wins what?"
Nicholas drew his wallet from his pocket and extracted the Bill Tydvil signed three months earlier. "Just this, my friend," he said. "You have asked me to reduce Mrs. Jones's flow of talk to one-sixteenth of its present volume. What you apparently do not know it, that neither her Creator, nor
I nor man can by any power or persuasion reduce the flow of any woman's talk by one word or one syllable against her will."
"You mean...?" Tydvil stared at him incredulous.
"I have failed in my last service to you--and believe me, Tydvil, it is the one I would most gladly perform if I could.
"So that..." He nodded a
