"I shall not be less busy this morning. I can listen."

"I want you to give me the name of a certain person who writes in your
magazine."

The editor's eye glanced at the second right-hand drawer of his desk.
It did not contain the names of his contributors, but what in the
traditions of his office was accepted as an equivalent,--a revolver.
He had never yet presented either to an inquirer. But he laid aside his
proofs, and, with a slight darkening of his youthful, discontented face,
said, "What do you want to know for?"

The question was so evidently unexpected that the stranger's face
colored slightly, and he hesitated. The editor meanwhile, without
taking his eyes from the man, mentally ran over the contents of the last
magazine. They had been of a singularly peaceful character. There seemed
to be nothing to justify homicide on his part or the stranger's. Yet
there was no knowing, and his questioner's bucolic appearance by no
means precluded an assault. Indeed, it had been a legend of the office
that a predecessor had suffered vicariously from a geological hammer
covertly introduced into a scientific controversy by an irate professor.

"As we make ourselves responsible for the conduct of the magazine,"
continued the young editor, with mature severity, "we do not give up the
names of our contributors. If you do not agree with their opinions"--

"But I DO," said the stranger, with his former composure, "and I reckon
that's why I want to know who wrote those verses called 'Underbrush,'
signed 'White Violet,' in your last number. They're pow'ful pretty."