"Singlebury," said Mr. Foxman, laying the sheets down, "this looks to me like a good piece of work. I like your beginning, anyhow. The first ten lines ought to blow that bunch of pirates clean out of water." He glanced keenly at the drooping figure of the other. "Kind of played out, aren't you?" "A little," confessed the reporter. "Now that it's over, I do feel a bit let down." "I'll bet you do," said Mr. Foxman. "Well, you'd better run along to your hotel and get a good night's rest. Take to-morrow off too--don't report here until day after to-morrow; that'll be Friday, won't it? All right then, I'll see you Friday afternoon here; I may have something of interest to say to you then. Meanwhile, as I told you before, keep your mouth shut to everybody. I don't know yet whether I'll want to run your story to-morrow morning or the morning after. My information is that Blake, through his lawyers, will announce the completion of the merger, probably on Friday, or possibly on Saturday. I may decide to hold off the explosion until they come out with their announcement. Really, that would be the suitable moment to open fire on 'em and smash up their little stock-market game for them." * * * * * Dog-tired and happier than any poor dog of a newspaper man has a right to be, Singlebury went to his room and to bed. And when finally he fell asleep he dreamed the second chapter of that orange-blossomy dream of his. Being left to himself, Mr. Foxman read Singlebury's copy through page by page, changing words here and there, but on the whole enormously pleased with it. Then he touched a buzzer button under his desk, being minded to call into conference the chief editorial writer and the news editor before he put the narrative into type. Now it happened that at this precise moment Mr. Foxman's own special boy had left his post just outside Mr. Foxman's door to skylark with a couple of ordinary copy boys in the corridor between the city room and the Sunday room, and so he didn't answer the summons immediately. The fact was, he didn't hear the bell until Mr. Foxman impatiently rang a second and a third time. Then he came running, making up a suitable excuse to explain his tardiness as he came. And during that half minute of delay there leaped out of nowhere into Mr. Foxman's brain an idea--an idea, horned, hoofed and hairy--which was to alter the current of his own life and, directly or indirectly, the lives of scores of others. * * * * * It would seem I was a trifle premature, back yonder near the beginning of this chapter, when I used the line: Six-thirty-four--enter the villain.