I expected to hear the
pistol-shot and the heavy fall from the next room. I forgot that it was
not the end of the fifth act.

Fox put my manuscript into his breast pocket.

"Come along, Granger," he said to me, "I want to speak to you. You'll
have plenty of opportunity for seeing Mrs. Hartly, I expect. She's tenth
on your list. Good-day, Hartly."

Hartly's hand was wavering between his moustache and his watch pocket.

"Good-day," he said sulkily.

"You must come and see me again, Mr. Granger," Mrs. Hartly said from
the door. "Come to the Buckingham and see how we're getting on with your
friend's play. We must have a good long talk if you're to get my local
colour, as Mr. Fox calls it."

"To gild refined gold; to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet--"

I quoted banally.

"That's it," she said, with a tender smile. She was fastening a button
in her glove. I doubt her recognition of the quotation.

When we were in our hansom, Fox began:

"I'm relieved by what I've seen of your copy. One didn't expect this
sort of thing from you. You think it a bit below you, don't you? Oh, I
know, I know. You literary people are usually so impracticable; you know
what I mean. Callan said you were the man. Callan has his uses; but one
has something else to do with one's paper. I've got interests of my own.
But you'll do; it's all _right_. You don't mind my being candid, do you,
now?" I muttered that I rather liked it.

"Well then," he went on, "now I see my way."

"I'm glad you do," I murmured. "I wish I did."

"Oh, that will be all right," Fox comforted. "I dare say Callan has
rather sickened you of the job; particularly if you ain't used to it.
But you won't find the others as trying. There's Churchill now, he's
your next. You'll have to mind him. You'll find him a decent chap. Not a
bit of side on him."

"What Churchill?" I asked.

"The Foreign Minister."

"The devil," I said.

"Oh, you'll find him all right," Fox reassured; "you're to go down to
his place to-morrow. It's all arranged. Here we are. Hop out." He suited
his own action to his words and ran nimbly up the new terra-cotta steps
of the _Hour's_ home. He left me to pay the cabman.

When I rejoined him he was giving directions to an invisible somebody
through folding doors.

"Come along," he said, breathlessly. "Can't see him," he added to a
little boy, who held a card in his hands. "Tell him to go to Mr. Evans.
One's life isn't one's