There is no shabbier, dingier city in the world than New York in midsummer. The metropolis seems to be inhabited by a race constitutionally untidy, indifferent to dirt, ignorant of beauty, of the elements of civic pride and duty. For health and comfort alone, tree-shaded streets are a necessity; but in New York there is a strange hostility to trees. The few that survive mutilation by vandals,--animal and human,--are species that ought not to be planted in such a city. A few miserable elms, distorted poplars, crippled maples, accentuate barren vistas. Lamp posts and fire boxes fill up the iron void, stark as the blasted woods of no-man’s land. Annan found Coltfoot, the Sunday editor, in his undershirt, drops of sweat spangling the copy he was pencilling. “You didn’t wait last night,” began Annan. “What do you think I am!” growled Coltfoot “I need sleep if you don’t.” He picked up a cold cigar, relighted it. “Do I get your ten or do you get mine?” “There’s her story,” said Annan, tossing the manuscript onto the desk. “Is it straight?” “No, of course not. You yourself said that nothing really ever happens except in the human brain.” “Then you hand me ten?” “I found a news item and made a story of it. As the girl is still alive, I had to end my story by deduction.” “What do you do, kill her off?” “I do.” “You and your morgue,” grunted Coltfoot. “--it’s a wonder your public stands for all the stiffs you bring in.... But they do.... They want more, too. It’s a murderous era. Fashion and taste have become necrological. But mortuary pleasures pass. Happy endings and bridal bells will come again. Then you tailors of Grubb Street will have to cut your shrouds according.” He glanced at the first pencilled page, skimmed it, read the next sheet more slowly, lingered over the third--suddenly slapped the manuscript with open palm: “All right. All right! You get away with murder, as usual.... Your stuff is dope. Anybody is an ass to try it. It’s habit-forming stuff. I don’t know now whether I owe you ten. I guess I do, don’t I?” “We’ll have to wait and see what happens to her. If her story works out like _my_ version of her story, you’ll owe me ten,” said Annan, laughing. “What really happened last night after I left?” demanded Coltfoot. Annan told him, briefly. “What,” exclaimed the other, “is that tramp girl still in your house?” “Yes, poor little devil. I’m going to ship her back to her native dairy this afternoon.... By the way, you’re dining with me, you know.” Coltfoot nodded, pushed a button and dragged a bunch of copy toward him. “Get out of here,” he said. * * * * * Annan lunched at the Pewter Mug, a club for clever professionals, where there were neither officers nor elections to membership, nor initiation fees, nor vouchers to sign. Nobody seemed to know how it originated, how it was run, how members became members.