in
any case."

"I'm not so sure. Where one lives doesn't so much matter. And I'm a
creature of habit."

"I think that you are going to be a very big man, Mr. Banneker."

"Do you?" He smiled down at her. "Now, why?"

She did not answer his smile. "You've got power," she replied. "And you
have mastered your medium--or gone far toward it."

"I'm grateful for your good opinion," he began courteously; but she
broke in on him, shaking her head.

"If it were mine alone, it wouldn't matter. It's the opinion of those
who know. Mr. Banneker, I've been taking a liberty."

"You're the last person in the world to do that, I should think," he
replied smilingly.

"But I have. You may remember my asking you once when those little
sketches that I retyped so often were to be published."

"Yes. I never did anything with them."

"I did. I showed them to Violet Thornborough. She is an old friend."

Ignorant of the publication world outside of Park Row, Banneker did not
recognize a name, unknown to the public, which in the inner literary
world connoted all that was finest, most perceptive, most discriminating
and helpful in selective criticism. Miss Thornborough had been the first
to see and foster half of the glimmering and feeble radiances which had
later grown to be the manifest lights of the magazine and book world,
thanks largely to her aid and encouragement. The next name mentioned by
Miss Westlake was well enough known to Banneker, however. The critic, it
appears, had, with her own hands, borne the anonymous, typed copies to
the editorial sanctum of the foremost of monthlies, and, claiming a
prerogative, refused to move aside from the pathway of orderly business
until the Great Gaines himself, editor and autocrat of the publication,
had read at least one of them. So the Great Gaines indulged Miss
Thornborough by reading one. He then indulged himself by reading three
more.

"Your goose," he pronounced, "is not fledged; but there may be a fringe
of swan feathers. Bring him to see me."

"I haven't the faintest idea of who, what, or where he is," answered the
insistent critic.

"Then hire a detective at our expense," smiled the editor. "And, please,
as you go, can't you lure away with you Mr. Harvey Wheelwright, our most
popular novelist, now in the reception-room wishing us to publish his
latest enormity? Us!" concluded the Great Gaines sufficiently.

Having related the episode to its subject, Miss Westlake said
diff