"Do you see the young man with the beautiful fair moustache," said Mr.
Bowring, "toiling away in his shirt-sleeves--there?"

"Near the railing at the entrance?"

"Precisely. I think I will put you next him." Mr. Bowring touched a button
on his desk and presently an office boy--a mop of auburn curls, a pert face
and gangling legs in knickerbockers--hurried up with a "Yes, Sir?"

"Please tell Mr. Kittredge that I would like to speak to him and--please
scrape your feet along the floor as little as possible."

The boy smiled, walking away less as if he were trying to terrorize park
pedestrians by a rush on roller skates. Kittredge and Howard were made
acquainted and went toward their desks together. "A few moments--if you
will excuse me--and I'm done," said Kittredge motioning Howard into the
adjoining chair as he sat and at once bent over his work.

Howard watched him with interest, admiration and envy. The reporter was
perhaps twenty-five years old--fair of hair, fair of skin, goodlooking in a
pretty way. His expression was keen and experienced yet too self-complacent
to be highly intelligent. He was rapidly covering sheet after sheet of soft
white paper with bold, loose hand-writing. Howard noticed that at the end
of each sentence he made a little cross with a circle about it, and that he
began each paragraph with a paragraph sign. Presently he scrawled a big
double cross in the centre of the sheet under the last line of writing and
gathered up his sheets in the numbered order. "Done, thank God," he said.
"And I hope they won't butcher it."

"Do you send it to be put in type?" asked Howard.