ead," builded cunningly of six sizes of type, he saw
ravishingly beautiful pictures of Madame Gianclis and Mrs. Athelstone,
and hovering between them the materialized, but homeless, soul of Madame
Blavatsky, trying to make choice of an abiding-place, the whole
enlivened and illuminated with much "snappy" reading matter.

Now, Simpkins was the man to make a managing editor's dreams come true,
so Naylor rubbed the lamp for him and told him what he craved. But the
reporter's success in life had been won by an ability to combine much
extravagance of statement in the written with great conservatism in
the spoken word. Early in his experience he had learned that Naylor's
optimism, though purely professional, entailed unpleasant consequences
on the reporter who shared it and then betrayed some too generous trust;
so he absolutely refused to admit that there was any basis for it now.

"You know she won't talk to reporters," he protested. "Those New York
boys have joshed that whole bunch so they're afraid to say their prayers
out loud. Then she's English and dead swell, and that combination's hard
to open, unless you have a number in the Four Hundred, and then it ain't
refined to try. I can make a pass at her, but it'll be a frost for me."

"Nonsense! You must make her talk, or manage to be around while some one
else does," Naylor answered, waving aside obstacles with the noble scorn
of one whose business it is to set others to conquer them. "I want a
good snappy interview, understand, and descriptions for some red-hot
pictures, if you can't get photos. I'm going to save the spread in the
Sunday magazine for that story, and you don't want to slip up on the
Athelstone end of it. That hall is just what the story needs for a
setting. Get in and size it up."

"You remember what happened to that _Courier_ man who got in?"
ventured Simpkins.

"I believe I did hear something about a _Courier_ man's being
snaked out of a closet and kicked downstairs. Served him right.
_Very_ coarse work. Very coarse work _indeed_. There's a better
way and you'll find it." There was something unpleasantly significant in
his voice, as he terminated the interview by swinging around to his desk
and picking up a handful of papers, which warned the reporter that he
had gone the limit.

Simpkins had heard of the hall, for it had been written up just after
Doctor Athelstone, who was a man of some wealth, had assembled in it his
private collection of Egypt