It was about this time—­perhaps two weeks after Kirk had replied to his father’s letter—­that Runnels called him in one day to ask: 

“Do you know a man named Clifford?”

“No.”

“He dropped in this morning, claiming to be a newspaper man from the States; wanted to know all about everything on the Canal and—­ the usual thing.  He didn’t talk like a writer, though.  I thought you might know him; he asked about you.”

“Me?” Kirk pricked up his ears.

“I gathered the impression he was trying to pump me.”  Runnels eyed his subordinate shrewdly.  “I boosted you.”

“Is he short and thick-set?”

“No.  Tall and thin.”  As Kirk merely looked at him in a puzzled way, he continued:  “I suppose we’re all suspicious down here, there’s so much of that sort of thing.  If he has anything on you—­”

“He’s got nothing on me.”

“I’m glad of that.  You’re the best man I have, and that shake-up I told you about is coming off sooner than I expected.  I’d hate to have anything happen to you.  Do you think you could hold down my job?”

“What?  Do you really mean it?”

“I do.”

“I think I could, if you would help me.”

Runnels laughed.  “That remark shows you haven’t developed Isthmitis, anyhow.”

“What is that?”

“Well, it’s a sort of mental disorder most of us have.  We believe everybody above us is incompetent, and everybody below us is after our jobs.  You’ll get it in time—­even some of the Commissioners have it.”

“It goes without saying that I’d like to be Master of
Transportation, but not until you’re through.”

“Well, the old man has had another row with Colonel Jolson, and may not wait for his vacation to quit.  I’m promised the vacancy.”

“Then you have seen the Colonel?”

“No—­but I have seen Mrs. Cortlandt.  I felt I had a right to ask something from her in return for what I did for you.  I know that sounds rotten, but you’ll understand how it is.  Colonel Jolson wants his brother-in-law, Blakeley, to have the place, but I’m entitled to it, and she has promised to fix it for me.  If I go up, you go, too; that’s why I was worried when this Clifford party appeared.”

“There is something, I suppose, I ought to tell you, although it doesn’t amount to much.  I was mixed up in a scrape the night I left New York.  A plain-clothes man happened to get his head under a falling bottle and nearly died from the effects.”

“What was the trouble?”

“It really wasn’t the least bit of trouble, it was fatally easy.  We were out on a grape carnival, six of us.  It was an anti-prohibition festival, and he horned in.”

“There is nothing else?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, this Clifford party is stopping at the Hotel Central.  Better look him over.”