rofile, she formed a curious contrast to her
short and rather stout companion. It was only a question of a minute
before they got into a waiting hansom and driven away; but, somehow, the
incident worried Jimmy. He wondered who she was, what she was, and was
so preoccupied with her that as he walked on eastwards, he hardly
noticed that he left the Strand, with its life and hurry, for the
comparative quietude of Fleet Street by night. He had come out of the
hotel intending to have a drink at the first likely-looking bar he came
to; but he was half-way between the Griffin and Ludgate Circus before he
remembered he was thirsty.

"Hullo, Grierson, my best of piracy experts. So you've come to Fleet
Street at last, as I always said you would. Sneddon, let me introduce
Mr. Grierson, an old colleague of mine on a short-lived paper in
Shanghai. He knows more Chinese pirates than any man I ever met, not to
mention gunrunners and opium smugglers; and he's perfectly invaluable to
fill a column when the news has run short." The speaker, a man of about
Jimmy's own age, with a keen, smooth-shaven face and restless eyes,
shook hands heartily, and ordered another round of drinks.

At the sound of his voice, Jimmy's face lit up with genuine pleasure. He
had known Douglas Kelly well on the China Coast, when the other was
editing a local paper for a starvation wage, and, as Kelly said, he had
written him many a column to fill up space with when both copy and
advertisements were short. The British and American community, being
absorbed in trade, and knowing nothing of literature, and often very
little of the English language, as is the way of its kind, had failed
to see the genius under the wild and not too temperate exterior, and had
frowned on the young editor as a rather scandalous person entirely
devoid of commercial instincts; but Jimmy had always stood by him, and
when a sudden access of wealth, in the form of a draft for sixty pounds
for a series of short stories in an American magazine, had enabled Kelly
to say good-bye both to the China Coast and to his creditors, Grierson
has regretted him as much, or even more, than had the latter.

"So you've come to Fleet Street, at last," Kelly repeated. "I knew you
would. And I suppose you are going to enter into competition with me. I
believe you are the one man of whom I am really afraid."

Jimmy laughed. "I only landed to-day, and I wandered down here by
chance. As for writing, I have do