He called to his driver: "Go to the Claridge first." Five minutes later the taxi was in Forty-Fourth Street and Larry was stepping out.

Fortune favored him in one fact--or perhaps his subconscious mind had based his plan upon this fact: the time was half-past ten, the theaters still held their crowds, the streets were empty, the restaurants were practically unoccupied.

He was incurring the minimum of risk.
"Wait for me," he ordered the driver.

"I'll be out in five minutes." In less than the half of the first of these minutes Larry had attained his first objective: the secluded telephone-room down behind the grill.
It was unoccupied except for the telephone girl who was gazing raptly at the sorrowful, romantic, and very soiled pages of "St.Elmo." The next moment she was gazing at something else--a five-dollar bill which Larry had slipped into the open book.
"That's to pay for a telephone call; just keep the change," he said rapidly.

"You're to do all the talking, and say just what I tell you." "I got you, general," said the girl, emerging with alacrity from romance to reality.