so he absolutely refused to admit that there was any basis for it now.

"You know she won't talk to reporters," he protested. "Those New York
boys have joshed that whole bunch so they're afraid to say their prayers
out loud. Then she's English and dead swell, and that combination's hard
to open, unless you have a number in the Four Hundred, and then it ain't
refined to try. I can make a pass at her, but it'll be a frost for me."

"Nonsense! You must make her talk, or manage to be around while some one
else does," Naylor answered, waving aside obstacles with the noble scorn
of one whose business it is to set others to conquer them. "I want a
good snappy interview, understand, and descriptions for some red-hot
pictures, if you can't get photos. I'm going to save the spread in the
Sunday magazine for that story, and you don't want to slip up on the
Athelstone end of it. That hall is just what the story needs for a
setting. Get in and size it up."

"You remember what happened to that _Courier_ man who got in?"
ventured Simpkins.

"I believe I did hear something about a _Courier_ man's being
snaked out of a closet and kicked downstairs. Served him right.
_Very_ coarse work. Very coarse work _indeed_. There's a better
way and you'll find it." There was something unpleasantly significant in
his voice, as he terminated the interview by swinging around to his desk
and picking up a handful of papers, which warned the reporter that he
had gone the limit.

Simpkins had heard of the hall, for it had been written up just after
Doctor Athelstone, who was a man of some wealth, had assembled in it his