He sat down at his desk again. He had loaded his pipe sedulously with an extra fine blend which he kept in his desk drawer for smoking during rare moments of relaxation when he had leisure to savor it. As he reached for a match he was meditating a genial remark to the city editor, when he discovered that there was only one tandsticker in the box. He struck it, and the blazing head flew off upon the cream-colored thigh of his Palm Beach suit. His naturally placid temper, undermined by thirty years of newspaper work and two years of prohibition, flamed up also. With a loud scream of rage and a curse against Sweden, he leaped to his feet and shook the glowing cinder from his person. Facing him he found a stranger who had entered the room quietly and unobserved. This was a huge man, clad in a sober uniform of gray cloth, with silver buttons and silver braid. A Sam Browne belt of wide blue leather marched across his extensive diagonal in a gentle curve. The band of his vizored military cap showed the initials C.P.H. in silver embroidery. His face, broad and clean-shaven, shone with a lustre which was partly warmth and partly simple friendliness. Save for a certain humility of bearing, he might have been taken for the liveried door-man of a moving-picture theater or exclusive millinery shop. In one hand he carried a very large black leather suit-case. "Is this Mr. Bleak?" he asked politely. "Yes," said the editor, in surprise. His secret surmise was that some one had died and left him a legacy which would enable him to retire from newspaper work. (This is the unacknowledged dream that haunts many journalists.) Mr. Bleak was wondering whether this was the way in which legacies were announced. The man in the gray uniform set the bag down with great care on the large flat desk. He drew out a key and unlocked it. Before opening it he looked round the room. The city editor and three reporters were watching curiously. A shy gayety twinkled in his clear blue eyes. "Mr. Bleak," he said, "you and these other gentlemen present are men of discretion--?" Bleak made a gesture of reassurance. The other leaned over the suit-case and lifted the lid. The bag was divided into several compartments. In one, the startled editor beheld a nest of tall glasses; in another, a number of interesting flasks lying in a porcelain container among chipped ice. In the lid was an array of straws, napkins, a flat tray labeled CLOVES, and a bunch of what looked uncommonly like mint leaves. Mr. Bleak did not speak, but his pulse was disorderly.