ell me she's gone and published that fool
of an interview?" Hugh shouted.

"I do seriously so mean," said Kate.

"Go and get me the paper," he said.

Kate brought him the _Evening Mail_ of two days back.

And there in black headlines he read--

"The only interview Hugh Kinross has ever granted."

"A lady beards the lion in his den and extracts most interesting
particulars."

"The eccentricities of a great author."

When Agnes Bibby's neat MS. had reached the Editor of the _Evening Mail_
that gentleman had fairly shouted with laughter, for he knew Kinross and
his habits well. And this perfervid and most serious account was in
truth very funny.

He found himself quite unable to resist so unique an opportunity of
raising a roar of laughter among his readers. Therefore, telling himself
that Kinross had too much humour to be seriously annoyed, and holding
himself protected by the well-known signature authenticating it, he had
at once blue-pencilled the article and sent it precisely as it stood
into the hands of the foreman printer. His twinkling eye had practically
swept over without noticing the modest signature at the end of the
article, "Agnes Bibby (Burunda)." Else, for the sake of Thomas
downstairs, if not for the lady herself, he would have scored it through
and let the laugh go against an anonymous contributor.

But things move rapidly in the office of an evening paper, and the
foreman ran through the first proofs and the sub-editor through the
second, and neither thought of removing that poor little name at the
end.

And now the article was two days old and quite famous. There had not
been a copy left of any of the editions.

"Well, well," said Hugh as he seized the paper, and ran his eye over the
paragraphs concerning his collar habit and his shoe habit, and his
ante-prandial energy,--"the laugh's only up against myself, and I'm not
thin-skinned." Then he saw the signature at the end, "Agnes Bibby
(Burunda)," in large, clear type.

"By George!" he said; "by George, Kate! That's rough on her." He
breathed hard. "Do you think she has seen it yet?"

"Seen it!" said Kate, and her voice actually choked a little. "The poor
girl is breaking her heart over it. I have never known any one feel
anything so acutely. Of course she must have realized it was all a joke
the moment she read the Editor's facetious comments. And then it seems
she has a brother in the office, and he has written to her a brotherly
let