ghtly shaken his head at
Ives. Banneker concluded his story. Marrineal capped it with another.
Ives, usually abstemious as befits one who practices sleight-of-hand and
brain, poured his empty goblet full of champagne and emptied it in long,
eager draughts. The dinner went on.

The ices were being cleared away when a newspaper man, not in evening
clothes, slipped in and talked for a moment with Mr. Gordon of The
Ledger. Presently another quietly appropriated a seat next to Van Cleve
of The Sphere. The tidings, whatever they were, spread. Then, the
important men of the different papers gathered about Russell Edmonds.
They seemed to be putting to him brief inquiries, to which he answered
with set face and confirming nods. With his quickened faculties,
Banneker surmised one of those inside secrets of journalism so often
sacredly kept, though a hundred men know them, of which the public reads
only the obvious facts, the empty shell. Now and again he caught a quick
and veiled glance of incomprehension of doubt, of incredulity, cast at
him.

He chattered on. Never did he talk more brilliantly.

Coffee. Presently there would be cigars. Then Marrineal would introduce
him, and he would say to these men, this high and inner circle of
journalism, the things which he could not write for his public, which he
could present to them alone, since they alone would understand. It was
to be his _magnum opus_, that speech. For a moment he had lost physical
visualization in mental vision. When again he let his eyes rest on the
scene before him, he perceived that a strange thing had happened. The
table at which Van Cleve had sat, with seven others, was empty. In the
same glance he saw Mr. Gordon rise and quietly walk out, followed by the
other newspaper men in the group. Two politicians were left. They moved
close to each other and spoke in whispers, looking curiously at
Banneker.

What manner of news could that have been, brought in by the working
newspaper man, thus to depopulate a late-hour dining-table? Had the
world turned upside down?

Below him, and but a few paces distant, Tommy Burt was seated. When he,
too, got slowly to his feet, Banneker leaned across the strewn, white
napery toward him.

"What's up, Tommy?"

For an instant the star reporter stopped, seemed to turn an answer over
in his mind, then shook his head, and, with an unfathomable look of
incredulity and shrinking, went his way. Bunny Fitch followed; Fitch,
the sl