red to be in the pile of
letters and telegrams that lay waiting for him on his desk. When they
had finished he would ask them questions, still with his attention fixed
apparently upon the paper in his hand. Then, looking up for the first
time, he would run off curt instructions, much in the tone of a Commander-
in-Chief giving orders for an immediate assault; and, finishing abruptly,
return to his correspondence. When the last, as it transpired, had
closed the door behind him, he swung his chair round and faced her.

"What have you been doing?" he asked her.

"Wasting my time and money hanging about newspaper offices, listening to
silly talk from old fossils," she told him.

"And having learned that respectable journalism has no use for brains,
you come to me," he answered her. "What do you think you can do?"

"Anything that can be done with a pen and ink," she told him.

"Interviewing?" he suggested.

"I've always been considered good at asking awkward questions," she
assured him.

He glanced at the clock. "I'll give you five minutes," he said.
"Interview me."

She moved to a chair beside the desk, and, opening her bag, took out a
writing-block.

"What are your principles?" she asked him. "Have you got any?"

He looked at her sharply across the corner of the desk.

"I mean," she continued, "to what fundamental rule of conduct do you
attribute your success?"

She leant forward, fixing her eyes on him. "Don't tell me," she
persisted, "that you had none. That life is all just mere blind chance.
Think of the young men who are hanging on your answer. Won't you send
them a message?"

"Yes," he answered musingly. "It's your baby face that does the trick.
In the ordinary way I should have known you were pulling my leg, and have
shown you the door. As it was, I felt half inclined for the moment to
reply with some damned silly platitude that would have set all Fleet
Street laughing at me. Why do my 'principles' interest you?"

"As a matter of fact they don't," she explained. "But it's what people
talk about whenever they discuss you."

"What do they say?" he demanded.

"Your friends, that you never had any. And your enemies, that they are
always the latest," she informed him.

"You'll do," he answered with a laugh. "With nine men out of ten that
speech would have ended your chances. You sized me up at a glance, and
knew it would only interest me. And your instinct is right," he added.
"What