nd son; so that Chillingworth had said things
in languages that are not dead (albeit a bit Elizabethan) and the
composing room had shaken mailed fists.

"Hi, you!" said Little Cawthorne, who was born in the South, "this
is a mellow minute. I could wish they came often. This shall be a
weekly occurrence--not so, St. George?"

"Cawthorne," Chillingworth warned, "mind your manners, or they'll
make you city editor."

A momentary shadow was cast by the appearance of Rollo, who was
manifestly a symbol of the world Philistine about which these guests
knew more and in which they played a smaller part than any other
class of men. But the tray which Rollo bore was his passport.
Thereafter, they all trooped to the table, and Chillingworth sat at
the head, and from the foot St. George watched the city editor break
bread with the familiar nervous gesture with which he was wont to
strip off yards of copy-paper and eat it. There was a tacit
assumption that he be the conversational sun of the hour, and in
fostering this understanding the host took grateful refuge.

"This is shameful," Chillingworth began contentedly. "Every one of
you ought to be out on the Boris story."

"What is the Boris story?" asked St. George with interest. But in
all talk St. George had a restful, host-like way of playing the role
of opposite to every one who preferred being heard.

"I'll wager the boy hasn't been reading the papers these three
months," Amory opined in his pleasant drawl.

"No," St. George confessed; "no, I haven't. They make me homesick."

"Don't maunder," said Chillingworth in polite criticism. "This is
Amory's story, and only about a quarter of the facts yet," he added
in a resentful growl. "It's up at the Boris, in West Fifty-ninth
Street--you know the apartment house? A Miss Holland, an heiress,
living there with her aunt, was attacked and nearly murdered by a
mulatto woman. The woman followed her to the elevator and came
uncomfortably near stabbing her from the back. The elevator boy was
too quick for her. And at the station they couldn't get the woman to
say a word; she pretends not to understand or to speak anything
they've tried. She's got Amory hypnotized too--he thinks she can't.
And when they searched her," went on Chillingworth with enjoyment,
"they found her dressed in silk and cloth of gold, and loaded down
with all sorts of barbarous ornaments, with almost priceless jewels.
Miss Holland claims that she never saw or hear