... I just remembered something Ruef was telling me." He
walked on thoughtfully. "Might be a story there for the boy's paper," he
cogitated.
Ruef's offices were at the corner of Kearney and California streets.
Thither, with some half-formed mission in his mind, Francisco took his
way. A saturnine man took him up in a little box-like elevator, pointing
out a door inscribed:
A. RUEF,
Att'y-at-Law.
The reception-room was filled. Half a dozen men and two women sat in
chairs which lined the walls. A businesslike young man inquired
Francisco's errand. "You'll have to wait your turn," he said. "I can't
go in there now ... he's in conference with Mr. Schmitz."
Francisco decided not to wait. After all, he had learned what he came
for.
Abe Ruef had borrowed a "presence."
CHAPTER LXXV
A NOCTURNAL ADVENTURE
Stanley was to learn much more of Eugene Schmitz. It was in fact the
following day that he met Ruef and the violinist at Zinkand's. Schmitz
was a man of imposing presence. He stood over six feet high; his curly
coal-black hair and pointed beard, his dark, luminous eyes and a certain
dash in his manner, gave him a glamor of old-world romance.
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