I used to think sometimes his motive was more than half for the pure deviltry of it, to laugh at the police and pull the noses of the rest of us that were after him.

I used to dream nights about those confounded gray seals of his--that's where he got his name; he left every job he ever did with a little gray paper affair, fashioned diamond-shaped, stuck somewhere where it would be the first thing your eyes would light upon when you reached the scene, and--" "Don't go so fast," smiled Jimmie Dale.

"I don't quite get the connection.

What did you have to do with this--er--Gray Seal fellow?
Where do you come in ?" "I?
I had a good deal to do with him," said Carruthers grimly.

"I was a reporter when he first broke loose, and the ambition of my life, after I began really to appreciate what he was, was to get him--and I nearly did, half a dozen times, only--" "Only you never quite did, eh ?" cut in Jimmie Dale slyly.