“Exactly!” repeated Mr. Tutt.

“What do you mean by ‘exactly?’” snapped Tutt.

“You’re bored,” explained his partner.

“Rather!” agreed Tutt.  “Bored to death.  Not with anything special, you understand; just everything.  I feel as if I’d like to do something devilish.”

“When a man feels like that he better go to a doctor,” declared Mr. Tutt.

“A doctor!” exclaimed Tutt derisively.  “What good would a doctor do me?”

“He might keep you from getting into trouble.”

“Oh, you needn’t be alarmed.  I won’t get into any trouble.”

“It’s the dangerous age,” said Mr. Tutt.  “I’ve known a lot of respectable married men to do the most surprising things round fifty.”

Tutt looked interested.

“Have you now?” he inquired.  “Well, I’ve no doubt it did some of ’em a world of good.  Tell you frankly sometimes I feel as if I’d rather like to take a bit of a fling myself!”

“Your professional experience ought to be enough to warn you of the dangers of that sort of experiment,” answered Mr. Tutt gravely.  “It’s bad enough when it occurs inadvertently, so to speak, but when a man in your condition of life deliberately goes out to invite trouble it’s a sad, sad spectacle.”

“Do you mean to imply that I’m not able to take care of myself?” demanded Tutt.

“I mean to imply that no man is too wise to be made a fool of by some woman.”

“That every Samson has his Delilah?”

“If you want to put it that way—­yes.”

“And that in the end he’ll get his hair cut?”

Mr. Tutt took a sip from the tumbler of malt and relit his stogy.

“What do you know about Samson and Delilah, Tutt?” he challenged.

“Oh, about as much as you do, I guess, Mr. Tutt,” answered his partner modestly.

“Well, who cut Samson’s hair?” demanded the senior member.

He emptied the dregs of the malt-extract bottle into his glass and holding it to the light examined it critically.

“Delilah, of course!” ejaculated Tutt.

Mr. Tutt shook his head.

“There you go off at half-cock again, Tutt!” he retorted whimsically.  “You wrong her.  She did no such thing.”

“Why, I’ll bet you a hundred dollars on it!” cried Tutt excitedly.

“Make it a simple dinner at the Claridge Grill and I’ll go you.”

“Done!”

There were four books on the desk near Mr. Tutt’s right hand—­the New York Code of Civil Procedure, an almanac, a Shakesperean concordance and a Bible.

“Look it up for yourself,” said Mr. Tutt, waving his arm with a gesture of the utmost impartiality.  “That is, if you happen to know in what part of Holy Writ said Delilah is to be found.”

Tutt followed the gesture and sat down at the opposite side of the desk.

“There!” he exclaimed, after fumbling over the leaves for several minutes.  “What did I tell you?  Listen, Mr. Tutt!  It’s in the sixteenth chapter of Judges:  ’And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death; That he told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head.’  Um—­um.”