nel, abandoning his hospitable plan of inviting his new
assistant to sup with him at the club, bowed with dignity, and Queed
eagerly left him. Glancing at his watch in the elevator, the young man
figured that the interview, including going and coming, would stand him
in an hour's time, which was ten minutes more than he had allowed for
it.

V

_Selections from Contemporary Opinions of Mr. Queed; also
concerning Henry G. Surface, his Life and Deeds; of Fifi, the
Landlady's Daughter, and how she happened to look up Altruism in
the Dictionary_.

A month later, one icy afternoon, Charles Gardiner West ran into Colonel
Cowles at the club, where the Colonel, a lone widower, repaired each day
at six P.M., there to talk over the state of the Union till nine-thirty.

"Colonel," said West, dropping into a chair, "man to man, what is your
opinion of Doctor Queed's editorials?"

"They are unanswerable," said the Colonel, and consulted his favorite
ante-prandial refreshment.

West laughed. "Yes, but from the standpoint of the general public,
Constant Reader, Pro Bono Publico, and all that?"

"No subscriber will ever be angered by them."

"Would you say that they helped the editorial page or not?"

"They lend to it an academic elegance, a scientific stateliness, a
certain grand and austere majesty--"

"Colonel, I asked you for your opinion of those articles."

"Damn it, sir," roared the Colonel, "I've never read one."

Later West repeated the gist of this conversation to Miss Weyland, who
ornamented with him a tiny dinner given that evening at the home of
their very good friends, Mr. and Mrs. Stewart Byrd.

It was a beautiful little dinner, as befitted the hospitable distinction
of the givers. The Stewart Byrds were hosts among a thousand. In him, as
it further happens, West (himself the beau ideal of so many) had from
long ago recognized his own paragon and pattern; a worthy one, indeed,
this tall young man whose fine abilities and finer faiths were already
writing his name so large upon the history of his city. About the
dim-lit round of his table there were gathered but six this evening,
including the host and hostess; the others, besides Sharlee Weyland and
West, being Beverley Byrd and Miss Avery: the youngest of the four Byrd
brothers, and heir with them to one of the largest fortunes in the
State; and the only daughter of old Avery, who came to us from Mauch
Chunk, Pa., his money pre