f an animated confidence relating to the flat
he had just taken and furnished in Boston, when the door opened, and the
pale young man whom Louise Hilary had noticed at the station, came in.

The reporter broke off with a laugh of greeting. "Hello, Maxwell! You
onto it, too?"

"Onto what?" said the other, with none of the reporter's effusion.

"This labor-trouble business," said the reporter, with a wink for him
alone.

"Pshaw, Pinney! You'd grow a bush for the pleasure of beating about it."
Maxwell hung his hat on a hook above the table, but sat down fronting
Pinney with his overcoat on; it was a well-worn overcoat, irredeemably
shabby at the buttonholes. "I'd like some tea," he said to the hostess,
"some English breakfast tea, if you have it; and a little toast." He
rested his elbows on the table, and took his head between his hands, and
pressed his fingers against his temples.

"Headache?" asked Pinney, with the jocose sympathy men show one
another's sufferings, as if they could be joked away. "Better take
something substantial. Nothing like ham and eggs for a headache."

The other unfolded his paper napkin. "Have you got anything worth
while?"

"Lots of public opinion and local color," said Pinney. "Have you?"

"I've been half crazy with this headache. I suppose we brought most of
the news with us," he suggested.

"Well, I don't know about that," said Pinney.

"I do. You got your tip straight from headquarters. I know all about it,
Pinney, so you might as well save time, on that point, if time's an
object with you. They don't seem to know anything here; but the
consensus in Hatboro' is that he was running away."

"The what is?" asked Pinney.

"The consensus."

"Anything like the United States Census?"

"It isn't spelt like it."

Pinney made a note of it. "I'll get a head-line out of that. I take my
own wherever I find it, as George Washington said."

"Your own, you thief!" said Maxwell, with sardonic amusement. "You don't
know what the word means."

"I can make a pretty good guess, thank you," said Pinney, putting up his
book.

"Do you want to trade?" Maxwell asked, after his tea came, and he had
revived himself with a sip or two.

"Any scoops?" asked Pinney, warily. "Anything exclusive?"

"Oh, come!" said Maxwell. "No, I haven't; and neither have you. What do
you make mysteries for? I've been over the whole ground, and so have
you. There are no scoops in it."

"I think there's a scoop if