I waved my hand impatiently, and he broke off.

"I was just tracing my mental states for you, in order to show the
genesis of the action," he explained. "However, the idea came.
What was the matter with a tramp sketch for the daily press? The
Irreconcilability of the Constable and the Tramp, for instance? So
I hit the drag (the drag, my dear fellow, is merely the street), or
the high places, if you will, for a newspaper office. The elevator
whisked me into the sky, and Cerberus, in the guise of an anaemic
office boy, guarded the door. Consumption, one could see it at a
glance; nerve, Irish, colossal; tenacity, undoubted; dead inside
the year.

"'Pale youth,' quoth I, 'I pray thee the way to the
sanctum-sanctorum, to the Most High Cock-a-lorum.'

"He deigned to look at me, scornfully, with infinite weariness.

"'G'wan an' see the janitor. I don't know nothin' about the gas.'

"'Nay, my lily-white, the editor.'

"'Wich editor?' he snapped like a young bullterrier. 'Dramatic?
Sportin'? Society? Sunday? Weekly? Daily? Telegraph? Local? News?
Editorial? Wich?'

"Which, I did not know. 'THE Editor,' I proclaimed stoutly.
'The ONLY Editor.'

"'Aw, Spargo!' he sniffed.