Because, as I now realise, the villain didn't enter then. The villain did not enter until this moment, more than forty-eight hours later, entering not in the guise of a human being but in the shape of this tufted, woolly demon of a notion which took such sudden lodgment in Mr. Foxman's mind. Really, I suppose we should blame the office boy. His being late may have been responsible for the whole thing. He poked a tow head in at the door, ready to take a scolding. "D'yer ring, sir?" he inquired meekly. "Yes, three times," said Mr. Foxman. "Where have you been?" "Right here, sir. Somethin' you wanted, sir?" "No; I've changed my mind. Get out!" Pleased and surprised to have escaped, the towhead withdrew. Very deliberately Mr. Foxman lit a cigar, leaned back in his chair, and for a period took mental accounting of his past, his present and his future; and all the while he did this a decision was being forged for him, by that busy devilish little tempter, into shape and point and permanency. In his fingers he held the means of making himself independent--yes, even rich. Why--he began asking himself the plaguing question and kept on asking it--why should he go on working his life out for twelve thousand dollars a year when, by one safe, secret stroke, he could make twelve times twelve thousand, or very possibly more? He knew what happened to newspaper executives who wore out in the harness. Offhand, he could think of half a dozen who had been as capable as he was, as active and as zealous, and as single-purposed in their loyalty to the sheets they served as he was to this sheet which he served. All of these men had held high editorial posts and, in their prime, had drawn down big salaries, as newspaper salaries go. Where were they now, since they had grown old? He knew where they were--mighty good and well he knew. One trying to run a chicken farm on Staten Island and daily demonstrating that a man who could manage a newspaper does not necessarily know how to manage a flock of temperamental White Leghorn hens; one an exchange editor, a neglected and unconsidered figure of obscurity, a nonentity almost, and a pensioner, practically, in the same shop whose affairs his slackened old hands had once controlled; one or two more of them actually needy--out of work and out at elbows; and so on, and so forth, through the list. Well, it rested with Mr. Foxman to avert such a finish to his own career; the instrument fitted to combat the prospect was here in his grasp. Temptation, whispering to him, bade him use it--told him he would be a sorry fool not to use it. What was that line about Opportunity's knocking once at every man's door? And what was that other line about there being a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune?