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 his own, and it became a habit,
if he saw a light in the window, and Granice's shadow against the
blind, to go in, smoke a pipe, and discuss the universe.

"Well--this is like old times--a good old habit reversed." The
editor smote his visitor genially on the shoulder. "Reminds me of
the nights when I used to rout you out... How's the play, by the
way? There _is_ a play, I suppose? It's as safe to ask you that as to