o'clock I was careful to reach the office a few minutes before that
hour, because I like to have time to look around and collect those
little details of environment and atmosphere which are so valuable in
themselves as to make it almost immaterial whether the person I am to
interview speaks at all.

Entering the offices, which can be described only as palatial, I was
struck by the thoughtfulness--no doubt appertaining to the head of the
establishment who was so soon, for the first time in history, to grant
me an audience--which had provided a parallelogram of some fibrous
material for the purpose of removing the mud from one's boots. A minute
later I was again delighted by the discovery of an ingenious contrivance
in the shape of a kind of peg or hook on which a hat and coat could
be placed. It is by just such minutiae as these that one place is
distinguished from another and character indicated.

Punctually to the minute I was shown into the Editor's room, where again
I was struck by the imaginative adequacy of the surroundings. Before
coming to the man himself let me say something of these. The floor was
not bare or even sprinkled with sawdust, as it might easily have been,
but it was covered by a comfortable carpet, probably from Axminster.
Comfort was indeed the note. The desk was neither pitch pine nor teak,
but mahogany. Upon it were scattered papers--lightly scattered, although
no doubt each was of the most momentous, even tragical import, some
bearing the signatures of the most eminent publicists in the land. Yet,
such is the domination of this man, they lay there like circulars or
election addresses. In the ink-pot was ink. A date rack was proof that
the Editor is not superior to the artificial divisions of time.

As I entered, his back was towards me, but none the less I was conscious