The Adventures of the Infallible Godahl

Armiston puffed up his chest and shot his cuffs again.

"How does he get his plots?"

Armiston knitted his ponderous brows. "There's the rub," he said. "You can talk about so-and-so much a word until you are deaf, dumb and blind. But, after all, it isn't the number of words or how they are strung together that makes a story. It is the ideas. And ideas are scarce."

"I have an idea that I have always wanted to have Armiston get hold of, just to see what he could do with it. If you will pardon me, to my way of thinking the really important thing isn't the ideas, but how to work out the details."

"What's your idea?" asked Armiston hastily. He was not averse to appropriating anything he encountered in real life and dressing it up to suit his taste. "I'll pass it on to Armiston, if you say so."

"Will you? That's capital. To begin with," Mr. Benson said as he twirled his brandy glass wit