russet in tone, well offset by the fine blue eyes which had the faculty
of seeing little and big things at the same time. He had dissipated in
a trifling fashion, but the healthy, active life he lived in the open
more than counteracted the effects. A lonely orphan, possessing a
lively imagination, is seldom free from some vice or other. There had
never been, however, what the world is pleased to term entanglements.
His guardian angel gave him a light step whenever there was any social
thin ice. Oh, he had some relatives; but as they were neither very
rich nor very poor, they seldom annoyed one another. He was, then, a
free lance in all the abused word implies; and he lived as he pleased,
spending his earnings freely and often carelessly, knowing that the
little his father had left him would keep a moderately hungry wolf from
the door. He had been born to a golden spoon, but the food from the
pewter one he now used tasted just as good.

"So here you are! I've been in the billiard-room, and the card-room,
and the bar-room."

"Talking of bar-rooms!" Fitzgerald reached for the button. "Sit down,
Hewitt, old boy. Glad to see you. Now, I'll tell you right off the
bat, nothing will persuade me. For years I've been jumping to the four
points of the compass at the beck of your old magazine and syndicate.
I'm going to settle down and write a novel."

"Piffle!" growled the editor, dropping his lanky form into a chair.
"Thank goodness, they haven't swivel chairs in the club. I've been
whirling round in one all day--a long, tall Scotch, please--but a
novel! I say, piffle!"

"Piffle it may be, but I'm going to have a whack at it. If I ever do