Pause. “I could make some inquiries, sir, through the usual channels, and call you back “And aside: “Now he says he’s a plumber and he wants to go to a fancy dress ball. Can you beat that? I tell you in this business…” And to him: “Would that be satisfactory, sir?”

“Fine,” Alfred Smith told him enthusiastically. “That would be fine.”

He hung up. Well, he was getting the hang of this espionage business. Nothing like a sales background for practice in quick thinking and quick talking.

He didn’t have to report to the office until tomorrow. That gave him this afternoon and this evening to save the human race.

Who would have thought when he was offered a job in New York with the BlakSeme Hosiery Company (“Men Notice BlakSemes—They’re so Shockingly Stocking!”) what tremendous stakes he’d be playing for the very day of his arrival? Of course, BlakSeme knew what kind of man he was, they knew he was executive timber or they’d never have hired him right out from under PuzzleKnit, their biggest competitor. He’d made quite a name for himself, Alfred Smith was modestly willing to admit, in the Illinois territory. Highest sales increases for three years running, steadiest repeat orders for five. But to PuzzleKnit Nylons (“PuzzleKnit Attracts Their Attention and Keeps Them Guessing”), he had just been a top-notch salesman: it had taken BlakSeme, with their upper-bracket, Madison-Avenue orientation, to see him as a possible district sales manager.

BlakSeme alone had seen he was big-league material. But even they had not guessed how big a league it was in which he was destined to play.

The desk clerk called back. “I find, sir, that there is a fancy dress ball of the boss plumbers and steamfitters of the metropolitan New York area. It’s at Menshevik Hall on Tenth Avenue at eight o’clock tonight. The theme of the ball is the ancien regime in France, and only people in pre-French-Revolution costumes will be admitted. Would you like the name of a place near the hotel where you can rent the right costume for the occasion?”