I have tried to recall every instant of that meeting, and cannot remember that I thought of her either as young or as a woman. Perhaps the excitement and amusement of my talk with Fergus served to prevent a more vivid first impression. I speak of this reaction because all my life, whenever I have met a woman--I have been much alone--I have had a curious sense of being with some one a little higher or better than I am, to whom I should bow, or to whom I should present something, or with whom I should joke. With whom I should not, after all, be quite natural! I wonder if this is at all an ordinary experience with men? I wonder if any one will understand me when I say that there has always seemed to me something not quite proper in talking to a woman directly, seriously, without reservation, as to a man? But I record it here as a curious fact that I met Anthy that morning just as I would have met a man--as one human being facing another. "I am the editor," she said crisply, but with good humour. "Well," I said, "I'm afraid I'm on a rather unusual and unbusinesslike errand." She did not help me. "Last week I read an editorial in your paper which amused--interested--me very much. It was headed 'Fudge,' The writer plainly doesn't believe either in flying machines or in Democrats." I heard Fergus bark behind me. "He's going to thrash the writer," said Fergus. Anthy glanced swiftly across at Fergus. It occurred to me in a flash: "Why, _she_ wrote it!" The sudden thought of the chin whiskers I had fastened upon the imaginary writer was too much for me, and I laughed outright. "Well," said I, "I shall not attempt any extreme measures until I try, at least, to convert her." I saw now that I had said something really amusing, for Fergus barked twice behind me and Anthy broke into the liveliest laughter. "You don't really think I wrote it?" she inquired in the roundest astonishment, with one hand on her breast. "I should certainly be very well repaid for my visit," said I, "if I thought you did." "Won't that amuse the Captain!" she exclaimed. "So the Captain wrote it," I said, not knowing in the least who the Captain was. "Tell me, has he chin whiskers?" "Why?" asked Anthy. "Well, when I read that editorial," I said, beginning again to enjoy the give and take of the conversation, "I imagined the sort of man who must have written it: chin whiskers, spectacles low on his nose, very severe on all young things." Anthy looked at Fergus. "And does he by any chance"--I inquired in as serious a manner as I could command, "I mean, of course, when he is angry--kick the cat?" At this Fergus came down with a bang on all four legs of his chair, and we all laughed together. "Say," said Fergus, "I don't know who ye are, but ye're all right!" And that was the way I came first to the printing-office. [Illustration] CHAPTER II I STEP BOLDLY INTO THE STORY