t the mercy of office boy or secretary, continues to stand
outside until she leaves in discouragement. But Fanny knew, too, that
she was not an average young woman. She had, on the surface, an air
of authority and distinction. She had that quiet assurance of one
accustomed to deference. She had youth, and beauty, and charm. She had a
hat and suit bought in Paris, France; and a secretary is only human.

Carl Lasker's private office was the bare, bright, newspaper-strewn room
of a man who is not only a newspaper proprietor, but a newspaper man.
There's a difference. Carl Lasker had sold papers on the street when he
was ten. He had slept on burlap sacks, paper stuffed, in the basement
of a newspaper office. Ink flowed with the blood in his veins. He could
operate a press. He could manipulate a linotype machine (that almost
humanly intelligent piece of mechanism). He could make up a paper single
handed, and had done it. He knew the newspaper game, did Carl Lasker,
from the composing room to the street, and he was a very great man in
his line. And so he was easy to reach, and simple to talk to, as are all
great men.

A stocky man, decidedly handsome, surprisingly young, well dressed,
smooth shaven, direct.

Fanny entered. Lasker laid down her card. "Brandeis. That's a good
name." He extended his hand. He wore evening clothes, with a white
flower in his buttonhole. He must have just come from a dinner, or he
was to attend a late affair, somewhere. Perhaps Fanny, taken aback,
unconsciously showed her surprise, because Lasker grinned, as he waved
her to a chair. His quick mind had interpreted her thought.

"Sit down, Miss Brandeis. You think I'm gotten up like the newspaper
man in a Richard Harding Davis short story, don't you? What can I do for
you?"

Fanny wasted no words. "I saw the parade this afternoon. I did a
picture. I think it's good. If you think so too, I wish you'd use it."

She laid it, face up, on Lasker's desk. Lasker picked it up in his two
hands, held it off, and scrutinized it. All the drama in the world is
concentrated in the confines of a newspaper office every day in the
year, and so you hear very few dramatic exclamations in such a place.
Men like Lasker do not show emotion when impressed. It is too wearing
on the mechanism. Besides, they are trained to self-control. So Lasker
said, now:

"Yes, I think it's pretty good, too." Then, raising his voice to a
sudden bellow, "Boy!" He handed the drawing