oes not talk ill of another. But this is different. I want to
ask you--do you know what manner of man this--this Blackie is? I ask
you because I would have you safe and sheltered always from such as
he--because I--"

"Safe! From Blackie? Now listen. There never was a safer, saner, truer,
more generous friend. Oh, I know what his life has been. But what else
could it have been, beginning as he did? I have no wish to reform him.
I tried my hand at reforming one man, and made a glorious mess of it. So
I'll just take Blackie as he is, if you please--slang, wickedness, pink
shirt, red necktie, diamond rings and all. If there's any bad in him,
we all know it, for it's right down on the table, face up. You're just
angry because he called you Doc."

"Small one," said Von Gerhard, in his quaint German idiom, "we will not
quarrel, you and I. If I have been neglectful it was because edged
tools were never a chosen plaything of mine. Perhaps your little Blackie
realizes that he need have no fear of such things, for the Great Fear is
upon him."

"The Great Fear! You mean!--"

"I mean that there are too many fine little lines radiating from the
corners of the sunken eyes, and that his hand-clasp leaves a moisture
in the palm. Ach! you may laugh. Come, we will change the subject to
something more cheerful, yes? Tell me, how grows the book?"

"By inches. After working all day on a bulletin paper whose city editor
is constantly shouting: 'Boil it now, fellows! Keep it down! We're
crowded!' it is too much of a wrench to find myself seated calmly before
my own typewriter at night, privileged to write one hundred thousand
words if I choose. I can't get over the habit of crowding the story all
into the first paragraph. Whenever I flower into a descriptive passage
I glance nervously over my shoulder, expecting to find Norberg stationed
behind me, scissors and blue pencil in hand. Consequently the book,
thus far, sounds very much like a police reporter's story of a fire four
minutes before the paper is due to go to press."

Von Gerhard's face was unsmiling. "So," he said, slowly. "You burn the
candle at both ends. All day you write, is it not so? And at night you
come home to write still more? Ach, Kindchen!--Na, we shall change all
that. We will be better comrades, we two, yes? You remember that gay
little walk of last autumn, when we explored the Michigan country lane
at dusk? I shall be your Sunday Schatz, and there shall be more ram