the receiver with a laugh. It had been a happy thought to call
up the editor of the Investigator--Robert Denver was the very man
he needed. . .

Granice put out the lights in the library--it was odd how the
automatic gestures persisted!--went into the hall, put on his hat
and overcoat, and let himself out of the flat. In the hall, a
sleepy elevator boy blinked at him and then dropped his head on
his folded arms. Granice passed out into the street. At the
corner of Fifth Avenue he hailed a crawling cab, and called out
an up-town address. The long thoroughfare stretched before him,
dim and deserted, like an ancient avenue of tombs. But from
Denver's house a friendly beam fell on the pavement; and as
Granice sprang from his cab the editor's electric turned the
corner.

The two men grasped hands, and Denver, feeling for his latch-key,
ushered Granice into the brightly-lit hall.

"Disturb me? Not a bit. You might have, at ten to-morrow
morning . . . but this is my liveliest hour . . . you know my
habits of old."

Granice had known Robert Denver for fifteen years--watched his
rise through all the stages of journalism to the Olympian
pinnacle of the Investigator's editorial office. In the thick-
set man with grizzling hair there were few traces left of the
hungry-eyed young reporter who, on his way home in the small
hours, used to "bob in" on Granice, while the latter sat grinding
at his plays. Denver had to pass Granice's flat on the way to