They fell into friendly talk about the wreck.

It was ten-thirty when Banneker finished his much-interrupted writing.
Going out to the portable house, he lighted an oil-stove and proceeded
to make a molasses pie. He was due for a busy day on the morrow and
might not find time to take the mile walk to the hotel for dinner, as
was his general habit. With the store of canned goods derived from the
mail-order catalogue, he could always make shift to live. Besides, he
was young enough to relish keenly molasses pie and the manufacture of
it. Having concluded his cookery in strict accordance with the rules set
forth in the guide to this art, he laid it out on the sill to cool over
night.

Tired though he was, his brain was too busy for immediate sleep. He
returned to his den, drew out a book and began to read with absorption.
That in which he now sought release and distraction was not the _magnum
opus_ of Messrs. Sears-Roebuck, but the work of a less practical and
popular writer, being in fact the "Eve of St. Agnes," by John Keats.
Soothed and dreamy, he put out the lights, climbed to his living
quarters above the office, and fell asleep. It was then eleven-thirty
and his official day had terminated five hours earlier.

At one o'clock he arose and patiently descended the stairs again. Some
one was hammering on the door. He opened without inquiry, which was not
the part of wisdom in that country and at that hour. His pocket-flash
gleamed on a thin young man in a black-rubber coat who, with head and
hands retracted as far as possible from the pouring rain, resembled a
disconsolate turtle with an insufficient carapace.

"I'm Gardner, of the Angelica City Herald," explained the untimely