summons to
dine. But, as he heard in the hall the voice of Chillingworth, the
difficulty of his task for the first time swept over him. It was
Chillingworth who had advocated to him the need of wooden type to
suit his literary style and who had long ordered and bullied him
about; and how was he to play the host to Chillingworth, not to
speak of the others, with the news between them of that million?

When the bell rang, St. George somewhat gruffly superseded Rollo.

"I'll go," he said briefly, "and keep out of sight for a few
minutes. Get in the bath-room or somewhere, will you?" he added
nervously, and opened the door.

At one stroke Chillingworth settled his own position by dominating
the situation as he dominated the city room. He chose the best chair
and told a good story and found fault with the way the fire burned,
all with immediate ease and abandon. Chillingworth's men loved to
remember that he had once carried copy. They also understood all the
legitimate devices by which he persuaded from them their best
effort, yet these devices never failed, and the city room agreed
that Chillingworth's fashion of giving an assignment to a new man
would force him to write a readable account of his own entertainment
in the dark meadows. Largely by personal magnetism he had fought his
way upward, and this quality was not less a social gift.

Mr. Toby Amory, who had been on the Eleven with St. George at
Harvard, looked along his pipe at his host and smiled, with
flattering content, his slow smile. Amory's father had lately had a
conspicuous quarter of an hour in Wall Street, as a result of which
Amory, instead of taking St. George to the cemetery at Clusium as he
had talked, himself drifted to Park Row; and although he now knew
considerably less than he had hoped about certain inscriptions, he
was supporting himself and two sisters by really brilliant work, so
that the balance of his power was creditably maintained. Surely the
inscriptions did not suffer, and what then was Amory that he should
object? Presently Holt, the middle-aged marine man, and Harding
who, since he had lost a lightweight sparring championship, was
sporting editor, solemnly entered together and sat down with the
social caution of their class. So did Provin, the "elder giant," who
gathered news as he breathed and could not intelligibly put six
words together. Horace, who would listen to four lines over the
telephone and therefrom make a half-column of