Looks more like a heavy-weight champion invalided after a desperate
scrap, than a writer; or like Samson betrayed by Delilah," thought
Sibley, rather pleased with the fancy.

He put out his hand to touch the bell for the lift to come up again,
but did not touch it. Instead, he turned and walked back along the
marble-walled corridor to the door of the reception room. The tall man
had just arrived and was talking to a wisp of a creature facetiously
known in the office as "the chucker out."

"Mr. Sibley has gone, sir," little McNutt was insisting, with dignity.
"He doesn't generally receive strangers. Mr. Elliot is in, though, and
might see you if you could wait--"

As he spoke, McNutt caught sight of his "boss" at the door, and by
looking up a pair of thick gray eyebrows, he made a distressful signal
of warning. It would be awkward for Mr. Sibley to be trapped and
buttonholed here, just as he had been officially described as out.
McNutt could not remember the boss ever coming back after he had gone
for the day, and appearing in the publicity of the reception room. If
he had forgotten something, why didn't he let himself in at the door of
his own private office, which was only a little further along the hall?
But, there he was, and must be protected.

"Who is Mr. Elliot?" enquired the stranger.

Eversedge Sibley spent a short holiday in England every summer, and
knew that the vilely dressed man had the accent of the British upper
classes. His curiosity grew with what it fed on.

"Mr. Elliot is the third partner in the firm," explained McNutt, to
whom such ignorance appeared disgraceful.

"Thank you, I'd rather wait until to-morrow and try to see Mr. Sibley
himself," said Denin.

"I am Mr. Sibley," the publisher confessed, on one of his irresistible
impulses. "I've just come back for something forgotten. I can give you
a few minutes if you like."

The man's face lit. It could never have been anything but plain, almost
ugly, even before the scars came; yet it was singularly arresting.
"That's very good of you," he said.

Sibley ushered the odd visitor into his own private office, but before
he could even be invited to sit down, Denin got to his errand.

"You must have thousands of manuscripts sent to you," he began, with a
shyness which appealed to Sibley. "I--suppose you hardly ever read one
yourself? You have men under you to do that. But I felt I shouldn't be
satisfied unless I could put the--the stuff I've w