The amateur detectives stood in the lower hall in the tall building, between swinging doors, and jostled by hurrying hundreds, while they read the names on a marble directory. "There he is!" said the editor, excitedly. "'American Literary Bureau.' One room on the fourteenth floor. That's just the sort of a place in which we would be likely to find him." But the reporter was gazing open-eyed at a name in large letters on an office door. "Edward K. Aram," it read, "Commissioner of ----, and City ----." "What do you think of _that_?" he gasped, triumphantly. "Nonsense," said the editor. "He wouldn't dare; besides, the initials are different. You're expecting too good a story." "That's the way to get them," answered the reporter, as he hurried towards the office of the City ----. "If a man falls dead, believe it's a suicide until you prove it's not; if you find a suicide, believe it's a murder until you are convinced to the contrary. Otherwise you'll get beaten. We don't want the proprietor of a little literary bureau, we want a big city official and I'll believe we have one until he proves we haven't." "Which are you going to ask for?" whispered the editor, "Edward K. or Edwin?" "Edwin, I should say," answered the reporter. "He has probably given notice that mail addressed that way should go to him." "Is Mr. Edwin Aram in?" he asked. A clerk raised his head and looked behind him. "No," he said; "his desk is closed. I guess he's gone home for the day." The reporter nudged the editor savagely with his elbow, but his face gave no sign. "That's a pity," he said; "we have an appointment with him. He still lives at Sixty-first Street and Madison Avenue, I believe, does he not?" "No," said the clerk; "that's his father, the Commissioner, Edward K. The son lives at ----. Take the Sixth Avenue elevated and get off at 116th Street." "Thank you," said the reporter. He turned a triumphant smile upon the editor. "We've got him!" he said, excitedly. "And the son of old Edward K., too! Think of it! Trying to steal a few dollars by cribbing other men's poems; that's the best story there has been in the papers for the past three months,--'Edward K. Aram's son a thief!' Look at the names--politicians, poets, editors, all mixed up in it. It's good for three columns, sure." "We've got to think of his people, too," urged the editor, as they mounted the steps of the elevated road. "He didn't think of them," said the reporter. The house in which Mr. Aram lived was an apartment-house, and the brass latchets in the hallway showed that it contained three suites. There were visiting-cards under the latchets of the first and third stories, and under that of the second a piece of note-paper on which was written the autograph of Edwin Aram. The editor looked at it curiously. He had never believed it to be a real name. "I am sorry Edwin Aram did not turn out to be a woman," he said, regretfully; "it would have been so much more interesting."