subordinates, managers and editors of departments, who entered and
departed one after another, evidently in pre-arranged order. All of them
spoke rapidly, without ever digressing by a single word from the point,
giving her the impression of their speeches having been rehearsed
beforehand.

Carleton himself never interrupted them. Indeed, one might have thought
he was not listening, so engrossed he appeared to be in the pile of
letters and telegrams that lay waiting for him on his desk. When they
had finished he would ask them questions, still with his attention fixed
apparently upon the paper in his hand. Then, looking up for the first
time, he would run off curt instructions, much in the tone of a Commander-
in-Chief giving orders for an immediate assault; and, finishing abruptly,
return to his correspondence. When the last, as it transpired, had
closed the door behind him, he swung his chair round and faced her.

"What have you been doing?" he asked her.

"Wasting my time and money hanging about newspaper offices, listening to
silly talk from old fossils," she told him.

"And having learned that respectable journalism has no use for brains,
you come to me," he answered her. "What do you think you can do?"

"Anything that can be done with a pen and ink," she told him.

"Interviewing?" he suggested.

"I've always been considered good at asking awkward questions," she
assured him.