There had been a time when six o'clock meant something better than
a paper goblet of lukewarm filtration.

He sat down at his desk again. He had loaded his pipe sedulously
with an extra fine blend which he kept in his desk drawer for
smoking during rare moments of relaxation when he had leisure to
savor it. As he reached for a match he was meditating a genial
remark to the city editor, when he discovered that there was only
one tandsticker in the box. He struck it, and the blazing head
flew off upon the cream-colored thigh of his Palm Beach suit. His
naturally placid temper, undermined by thirty years of newspaper
work and two years of prohibition, flamed up also. With a loud
scream of rage and a curse against Sweden, he leaped to his feet
and shook the glowing cinder from his person. Facing him he found
a stranger who had entered the room quietly and unobserved.

This was a huge man, clad in a sober uniform of gray cloth, with
silver buttons and silver braid. A Sam Browne belt of wide blue
leather marched across his extensive diagonal in a gentle curve.
The band of his vizored military cap showed the initials C.P.H. in
silver embroidery. His face, broad and clean-shaven, shone with a
lustre which was partly warmth and partly simple friendliness.
Save for a certain humility of bearing, he might have been taken
for the liveried door-man of a moving-picture theater or exclusive
millinery shop.

In one hand he carried a very large black leather suit-case.

"Is this Mr. Bleak?" he asked politely.