Johnny bore the scrutiny in silence, stifling the impulse to rise and offer Apollo a chair.  Instead, he turned lazily and knocked the ash collar off his cigarette, and afterward thumped the top pillow before he resettled himself.

“Won’t cost anything to sit down,” he observed amiably.  “Well, where’s that apology?”

The slim young man laughed to himself, deposited his cane and gloves on a chair, moved his feet slightly farther apart and produced a small pad.  “For the sins I may commit, I humbly apologize.  Whatever it was your sagebrush scribes perpetrated I didn’t write it, therefore we should not quarrel.  A few details on your trip to-day will be of interest, Mr. Jewel.”

Johnny grinned.  “There ain’t any details.  We just flew till we got here, and then we lit.”

“We?” The gray-clad one lifted a finely formed eyebrow.

“My mechanic and me.”

“Ah.”  The fellow made a mark or two with his pencil and waited for more—­until he perceived that more would not be forthcoming.

“And now that you have lit, what do you expect to do, may I ask?”

“Oh-h—­” Johnny covered a wide yawn with his palm, “make money.  What else is there to do?”

“Go broke,” the reporter suggested, smiling again—­with less boredom, by the way.

“Old stuff,” Johnny grunted.  “I aim to be different.”

The fashion plate laughed almost humanly.  “If half they said of you is true, you’ve nothing to complain about.  By the way—­how much of it was true?  I mean how you salvaged the plane from Mexico and used it to catch horse thieves, and the Indian god stuff, and the Lochinvar—­”

Johnny sat up belligerently.  “Say!  What are you looking for?  Trouble?”

“Merely verifying rumors.  A very natural professional caution, I assure you.”

“Caution!  Hnh!  Funny way you’ve got of being cautious, old-timer.  I’d call it a fine way of heading down-stairs without waiting for the elevator.”

“I understand—­perfectly.  So you have no settled plans for the future, I take it?  Just ready for whatever turns up that looks promising?”

Johnny grunted and looked at his watch.  Hunger, which he had forgotten in the novelty of his surroundings, began to manifest itself again.  He got up and gleaned his aviator’s helmet from a branch of the mahogany hatrack and looked at it dubiously, wishing that it was his Big Four Stetson instead.

“What I’m ready for right now is chuck,” he said pointedly.  “I ain’t fortune teller enough to give you any line on my future.  I wish to heck I could.  I’m out here to make good at flying.  Money—­that’s what I want.  Lots of it.  But right now I want a square meal more than anything.  So I’m afraid—­”

“All right, Jewel.  I cease to be a news hound and become your host, with your permission.  Let me take you to a regular place, will you?  I haven’t had dinner yet myself.”