lan! I felt sure that if a man who was a real
judge of literary power met Ron face to face, and got to know him, he
would realise his gifts, and be willing to give him a chance. It was no
use trying in London in the midst of the full pressure of work, but in
the country everything is different. I knew a man who knew a man in the
office of the _Loadstar_, and asked him to find out your brother's
plans--"

As she was speaking Margot was conscious of a succession of stifled
chuckles which her companion vainly tried to suppress. The Chieftain's
amusement had evidently overmastered his threatened displeasure, and
when at length she paused, he burst into an irresistible guffaw of
laughter, rubbed his hands together, and cried gleefully--

"Stalked him! Stalked him! Poor old George! Big game, and no mistake.
Ran him to earth... Eh, what? Bravo, bravo, Miss Bright Eyes! You
are a first-class conspirator."

He laughed again and again, with ever-increasing merriment, laughed till
his eyes disappeared in wrinkles of fat, till the tears streamed
helplessly down his cheeks. His portly form shook with the violence of
his merriment; he kicked the air with his short, fat feet.

Margot stared at this strange exhibition in an amazement, which
gradually changed into annoyance and outraged dignity; so that when at
last the Chieftain sat up to mop his eyes with a large silk pocket-
handkerchief, he beheld a very dignified young lady sitting by his side
in a position of poker-like rigidity, with her head tilted to an
expressive angle.

"Sorry!" he panted hastily. "Sorry I smiled. A compliment, you know,
if you look at it in the right light. It's such an uncommonly good
idea, and so original. `The Stalking of the Editor'--eh? Well, now
that you have made such a rattling good beginning, why don't you go on
and prosper? Here you are; there he is; the field is your own. Why
don't you go in and win?"

Margot's face fell, and her haughty airs vanished, as she turned towards
him a pair of widely-opened eyes, eloquent with plaintive surprise.

"But I can't! How can I, when he runs away the moment I appear? I made
Ron go fishing with him one day, but he went off and left him alone, and
now it's no use persuading any more. Ron says it is only waste of time!
As for me, I have hardly spoken a word to him all this time, though I
feel that if I did really know him, I--" she hesitated, knitting her
brows, and pursing her soft r