"And then we came on here to see about it, and spent everything else that we had in trying to get it back, but we lost our case. And since then----" "Well, sister, we are keeping the gentleman. Thank you very much," said the younger of the two quickly, to which her sister added her thanks as well. I insisted at first on going further with them, but seeing that they were evidently anxious to be rid of me, I gave them their bundles and passed on. Among the boarders one of those I found most interesting was a young man named Kalender, by whom I sat at the first meal after my arrival, and with whom I struck up an acquaintance. He was a reporter for a morning paper of very advanced methods, and he was pre-eminently a person fitted for his position: a cocky youth with a long, keen nose and a bullet head covered with rather wiry, black hair, heavy black brows over keen black eyes, and an ugly mouth with rather small yellowish teeth. He had as absolute confidence in himself as any youth I ever met, and he either had, or made a good pretence of having, an intimate knowledge of not only all the public affairs of the city, but of the private affairs of every one in the city. Before we had finished smoking our cigarettes he had given me what he termed "the lay out" of the entire community, and by his account it was "the rottenest ---- town in the universe"--a view I subsequently had reason to rectify--and he proposed to get out of it as soon as he could and go to New York, which, to his mind, was the only town worth living in in the country (he having, as I learned later, lived there just three weeks). His paper, he said frankly, paid only for sensational articles, and was just then "jumping on a lot of the high-flyers, because that paid," but "they" gave him a latitude to write up whatever he pleased, because they knew he could dress up anything--from a murder to a missionary meeting. "Oh! it don't matter what you write about," said he airily, "so you know how to do it"--a bit of criticism suggestive of a better-known critic. I was much impressed by his extraordinary and extensive experience. In the course of our conversation I mentioned casually the episode of the delayed train and the private car. "The Argands' car, you say?" I told him that that was what some one had said.