editorial room and glance over the exchanges, as was his habit before
breakfast.

The door opened lightly. The editor was conscious of a faint odor of
scented soap, a sensation of freshness and cleanliness, the impression
of a soft hand like a woman's on his shoulder and, like a woman's,
momentarily and playfully caressing, the passage of a graceful shadow
across his desk, and the next moment Jack Hamlin was ostentatiously
dusting a chair with an open newspaper preparatory to sitting down.

"You ought to ship that office-boy of yours, if he can't keep things
cleaner," he said, suspending his melody to eye grimly the dust which
Mr. Bowers had shaken from his departing feet.

The editor did not look up until he had finished revising a difficult
paragraph. By that time Mr. Hamlin had comfortably settled himself on
a cane sofa, and, possibly out of deference to his surroundings, had
subdued his song to a peculiarly low, soft, and heartbreaking whistle as
he unfolded a newspaper. Clean and faultless in his appearance, he had
the rare gift of being able to get up at two in the afternoon with
much of the dewy freshness and all of the moral superiority of an early
riser.

"You ought to have been here just now, Jack," said the editor.

"Not a row, old man, eh?" inquired Jack, with a faint accession of
interest.

"No," said the editor, smiling. Then he related the incidents of the
previous interview, with a certain humorous exaggeration which was part