If
you have as much force as you have length there's nothing the matter
with you, though."

"Oh, I'm all right," said Eugene, "when I'm by myself. These little men
worry me, though. They are so darned smart."

Colfax cackled ecstatically. He liked Eugene's looks. The latter's
manner, easy and not in any way nervous or irritable but coupled with a
heavenly alertness of eye, took his fancy. It was a fit companion for
his own terrific energy, and it was not unduly soft or yielding.

"So you're the advertising manager of the _North American_. How'd they
ever come to tie you down to that?"

"They didn't tie me," said Eugene. "I just lay down. But they put a nice
fat salary on top of me to keep me there. I wouldn't lie down for
anything except a salary."

He grinned smartly.

Colfax cackled.

"Well, my boy, it doesn't seem to be hurting your ribs, does it? They've
not caved in yet. Ha! Ha!--Ha! Ha! They've not, have they? Ha! Ha!"

Eugene studied this little man with great interest. He was taken by his
sharp, fierce, examining eye. He was so different from Kalvin, who was
about his size, but so much more quiet, peaceful, dignified. Colfax was
electric, noisy, insistent, like a pert jack-in-the-box; he seemed to be
nothing but energy. Eugene thought of him as having an electric body
coated over with some thin veneer of skin. He seemed as direct as a
flash of lightning.

"Doing pretty good over there, are you?" he asked. "I've heard a little
something about you from time to time. Not much. Not much. Just a
little. Not unfavorable, though. Not unfavorable."

"I hope not," said Eugene easily. He wondered why Colfax was so
interested in him. The latter kept looking him over much as one might
examine a prize animal. Their eyes would meet and Colfax's would gleam
with a savage but friendly fire.

"Well?" said Eugene to him finally.

"I'm just thinking, my boy! I'm just thinking!" he returned, and that
was all Eugene could get out of him.

It was not long after this very peculiar meeting which stuck in Eugene's
memory that Colfax invited him over to his house in New York to dinner.
"I wish," he wrote one day not long after this meeting, "that the next
time you are in New York you would let me know. I would like to have you
come to my house to dine. You and I ought to be pretty good friends.
There are a number of things I would like to talk to you about."

This was written on the paper of the United Magazines Corpora