g
his letter. Raphael mildly hinted that the letter was written in such
unintelligible English that he had to grapple with it for an hour before
he could reduce it to the coherence demanded of print. But it was no
use; it seems Raphael had made him say something heterodox he didn't
mean, and he insisted on being allowed to reply to his own letter! He
had brought the counter-blast with him; six sheets of foolscap with all
the t's uncrossed, and insisted on signing it with his own name. I said,
'Why not? Set a Karlkammer to answer to a Karlkammer.' But Raphael said
it would make the paper a laughing-stock, and between the dread of that
and the consciousness of having done the man a wrong, he was quite
unhappy. He treats all his visitors with angelic consideration, when in
another newspaper office the very office-boy would snub them. Of course,
nobody has a bit of consideration for him or his time or his purse."

"Poor Raphael!" murmured Esther, smiling sadly at the grotesque images
conjured up by Sidney's description.

"I go down there now whenever I want models," concluded Sidney gravely.

"Well, it is only right to hear what those poor people have to say,"
Addie observed. "What is a paper for except to right wrongs?"

"Primitive person!" said Sidney. "A paper exists to make a profit."

"Raphael's doesn't," retorted Addie.

"Of course not," laughed Sidney. "It never will, so long as there's a
conscientious editor at the helm. Raphael flatters nobody and reserves
his praises for people with no control of the communal advertisements.
Why, it quite preys upon his mind to think that he is linked to an
advertisement canvasser with a gorgeous imagination, who goes about
representing to the unwary Christian that the _Flag_ has a circulation
of fifteen hundred."

"Dear me!" said Addie, a smile of humor lighting up her beautiful
features.

"Yes," said Sidney, "I think he salves his conscience by an extra hour's
slumming in the evening. Most religious folks do their moral
book-keeping by double entry. Probably that's why he's not here
to-night."

"It's too bad!" said Addie, her face growing grave again. "He comes home
so late and so tired that he always falls asleep over his books."

"I don't wonder," laughed Sidney. "Look what he reads! Once I found him
nodding peacefully over Thomas a Kempis."

"Oh, he often reads that," said Addie. "When we wake him up and tell him
to go to bed, he says he wasn't sleeping, but thin