The boys scampered off, and the Senator, looking about, declared that we were making great progress. "Yes, Sir, we'll coin money here; and do you know, Belford, I am beginning to believe that money is a pretty good thing after all? Yes, Sir, I have about arrived at that conclusion. It won't take a man to Heaven, but it arms him against a hell on earth. Let me see, there was something else I intended to say. Oh, yes. Now it's all right to be friendly with everybody, but intimacy is a dangerous thing. Encourage it and the first thing you know the loafers about town will begin to call you by your first name. That kills a man if he's in any sort of public life. Why, Sir, if I had let those fellows call me Giles, I couldn't have remained in the Senate more than one term; would have killed me, Sir, as dead as a door nail. In this human family a man thinks more of you in the long run if you compel him to bow to you than if you permit him to put his arm on your shoulder. Our natures respect exclusiveness. We may make fun of what we conceive to be a groundless dignity, but at its face we bow to it. Well, you can now begin your correspondence. I have put money to your credit at the bank, and there's nothing to keep you from going ahead. There are some other little details that can be arranged at our leisure. And now, as to a boarding place. Our hotels are not first class. And here's what I regard as a good idea. This room off here you can fit up as a sleeping apartment, and you can take your meals at a restaurant. Suit you?" "Perfectly. And I want to thank you for your--" "Wait till the end of next season, Sir; we haven't time now. And, by the way, I want you to come out to the house as often as you can conveniently. Just come and go as you please. Well, Mr. Manager, I'll bid you good-morning." My room was airy, and, proportioned in that wastefulness of space which marks one of the interior differences between the town and the great city, it afforded the luxury of many an imaginary path over which I could walk in meditation upon my play; and that piece of work was uppermost in my mind. It was my hope to exist as a manager until I could pip the shell as a dramatist--selfish, I confess; and so is art a selfishness, and so is every high-born longing in the breast of man. Indeed, philanthropy itself cannot escape the accusation: To give to the needy awakens the applause of the conscience. A slight tapping attracted my attention, and looking round I saw standing in the doorway a tall, gaunt man with a beard so red as to shoot out the suggestion that it had been put on hot and that sufficient time had not elapsed for it to cool. I invited him in; and, stepping forward, he handed me a card on which in black type and with heavy impression was printed the name Lucian C. Petticord, followed by the information (also heavy and black) that I was in the presence of the Editor of the Bolanyo _Daily Times_, and the enemy of Senator Giles Talcom.