The sight seemed to reassure him somewhat. As did the other, similar tin legends that were tacked up between the treads of the long flight of stairs that led to Simpson Street, at each of which he turned to look. Humphrey had before him a pile of canvas-bound account books, a spindle of unpaid bills, a little heap of business letters, and a pad covered with pencilled columns. He rested an elbow among the papers, turned his chair, and looked through the window down into the street. A moment passed, then he saw Henry walking diagonally across toward Donovan's drug store. For an ice-cream soda, of course; or one of those thick, 'frosted' fluids of chocolate or coffee flavour that he affected. And it was now within an hour of supper time. Humphrey leaned forward. Yes, there he stood, on the kerb before Donovan's, looking, with a quick nervous jerking of the head, now up Simpson Street, now down. Yes, that was his hurry--the usual thing. Madame Watt made a point of driving down to meet the five-twenty-nine from town. Senator Watt always came out then. And usually Cicely Hamlin came along with her. Humphrey sighed, rose, stood looking down at the bills and letters and canvas books; pressed a hand again against his eyes; wandered to the press-room door and looked, pursing his lips, knitting his brows, at the row of job presses, at the big cylinder press that extended nearly across the rear end of the long room, at the row of type cases on their high stands, at imposing-stones on heavy tables. He sniffed the odour of ink, damp paper, and long, respected dust that hung over the whole establishment. He smiled, moodily, as his eye rested on the gray and black roller towel that hung above the iron sink, recalling Bob Burdette's verses. He returned to the office, and stood for a few moments before the file of the _Gleaner_ on the wall desk by the door, turning the pages of recent issues. From each number a story by Henry Calverly, 3rd, seemed to leap out at his eyes and his brain. _The Caliph of Simpson Street, Sinbad the Treasurer, A Kerbstone Barmecide, The Cauliflowers of the Caliph, The Printer and the Pearls, Ali Anderson and the Four Policemen_--the very titles singing aloud of the boy's extraordinary gift. 'And it's all we've got here,' mused Humphrey, moving back to his own desk. 'That mad child makes us, or we break. I've got to humour him, protect him. Can't even show him these bills. Like getting all your light and heat from a candle that may get blown out any minute.' And before dropping heavily into his chair, glancing at his watch, drawing his eye-shade down, and plunging again at the heavy problem of keeping a country weekly alive without sufficient advertising revenue, he added, aloud, with a wry, wrinkly smile that yet gave him a momentary whimsical attractiveness: 'That's the devil of it!' There was a step on' the stairs.