The man
wore upon his feet jack-boots whose wide, funnel-shaped legs had settled
down in many a fold and crease about his ankles, as could be seen
whenever accident parted the bottom of the cloak. His arms were
concealed, but sometimes he stretched out the right to steady himself by
a headstone as he crept stealthily but blindly over the uneven ground.
At such times a close scrutiny of the hand would have disclosed in the
palm the hilt of a poniard, the blade of which lay along the wrist,
hidden in the sleeve. In short, the man's garb, his movements, the
hour--everything proclaimed him a reporter.

But what did he there?

On the morning of that day the editor of the _Daily Malefactor_ had
touched the button of a bell numbered 216 and in response to the summons
Mr. Longbo Spittleworth, reporter, had been shot into the room out of an
inclined tube.

"I understand," said the editor, "that you are 216--am I right?"

"That," said the reporter, catching his breath and adjusting his
clothing, both somewhat disordered by the celerity of his flight through
the tube,--"that is my number."

"Information has reached us," continued the editor, "that the
Superintendent of the Sorrel Hill cemetery--one Inhumio, whose very name
suggests inhumanity--is guilty of the grossest outrages in the
administration of the great trust confided to his hands by the sovereign
people."

"The cemetery is private property," faintly suggested 216.

"It is alleged," continued the great man, disdaining to notice the
interruption, "that in violation of popular rights he refuses to permit
his accounts to be inspected by representatives of the press."

"Under the law, you know, he is responsible to the directors of the
cemetery company," the reporter ventured to interject.

"They say," pursued the editor, heedless, "that the inmates are in many
cases badly lodged and insufficiently clad, and that in consequence they
are usually cold. It is asserted that they are never fed--except to the
worms. Statements have been made to the effect that males and females
are permitted to occupy the same quarters, to the incalculable detriment
of public morality. Many clandestine villainies are alleged of this
fiend in human shape, and it is desirable that his underground methods
be unearthed in the _Malefactor_. If he resists we will drag his family
skeleton from the privacy of his domestic closet. There is money in it
for the paper, fame for you--are you ambitio