The editor did not look up until he had finished revising a difficult paragraph. By that time Mr. Hamlin had comfortably settled himself on a cane sofa, and, possibly out of deference to his surroundings, had subdued his song to a peculiarly low, soft, and heartbreaking whistle as he unfolded a newspaper. Clean and faultless in his appearance, he had the rare gift of being able to get up at two in the afternoon with much of the dewy freshness and all of the moral superiority of an early riser. “You ought to have been here just now, Jack,” said the editor. “Not a row, old man, eh?” inquired Jack, with a faint accession of interest. “No,” said the editor, smiling. Then he related the incidents of the previous interview, with a certain humorous exaggeration which was part of his nature. But Jack did not smile. “You ought to have booted him out of the ranch on sight,” he said. “What right had he to come here prying into a lady's affairs?--at least a lady as far as HE knows. Of course she's some old blowzy with frumpled hair trying to rope in a greenhorn with a string of words and phrases,” concluded Jack, carelessly, who had an equally cynical distrust of the sex and of literature. “That's about what I told him,” said the editor. “That's just what you SHOULDN'T have told him,” returned Jack. “You ought to have stuck up for that woman as if she'd been your own mother. Lord! you fellows don't know how to run a magazine. You ought to let ME sit on that chair and tackle your customers.” “What would you have done, Jack?” asked the editor, much amused to find that his hitherto invincible hero was not above the ordinary human weakness of offering advice as to editorial conduct. “Done?” reflected Jack. “Well, first, sonny, I shouldn't keep a revolver in a drawer that I had to OPEN to get at.” “But what would you have said?” “I should simply have asked him what was the price of lumber at Mendocino,” said Jack, sweetly, “and when he told me, I should have said that the samples he was offering out of his own head wouldn't suit. You see, you don't want any trifling in such matters. You write well enough, my boy,” continued he, turning over his paper, “but what you're lacking in is editorial dignity. But go on with your work. Don't mind me.” Thus admonished, the editor again bent over his desk, and his friend softly took up his suspended song. The editor had not proceeded far in his corrections when Jack's voice again broke the silence. “Where are those d----d verses, anyway?” Without looking up, the editor waved his pencil towards an uncut copy of the “Excelsior Magazine” lying on the table. “You don't suppose I'm going to READ them, do you?” said Jack, aggrievedly. “Why don't you say what they're about? That's your business as editor.”