The mail brought him the usual miscellaneous assortment of orders and bills, and letters on minor points, and questions as to the typometer. The mail was rather apt to be encouraging in its suggestions of a large trade. Two letters this morning were full of enthusiastic encomium on the use of the machine. In spite of an enormous and long-outstanding bill for office stationery, insistently clamorous for payment--one of those bills looked upon as trifles until they suddenly become staggering--there was, after the mail, a general feeling of wielding the destiny of a large part of the world, where the typometer was a power. [Illustration: "'YOU'RE VERY GOOD TO BE SO SORRY FOR ME,' SHE WHISPERED"] A little woman whose husband, now dead, had been in his employ came in to get help in collecting his insurance; she was timid before Justin, deeply grateful for his kind and effective assistance. Two men came in, at different times, for advice and introductions to important people. A friend brought in a possible customer from the Sandwich Islands. There was all that aura of prosperity that has nothing to do with the payment of one's bills. Justin took both the friend and the customer out to lunch, his agreeable sense of hospitality only dimmed by the disagreeable fact of its taking every cent of the five dollars he had expected to last for the week. He was "strapped." The luncheon took longer, also, than he had counted on its doing. The morning, begun well, seemed to lead up only to sordid and anxious details--a sense of non-accomplishment, induced also by small requisitions from different people, requiring cash from a cash-drawer that was usually empty. It was a welcome relief to figure, with Harker's assistance, on the large sums coming in at the end of the month from Coneways. There were a hundred ways for them to go, but they were to go to Lewiston. Perhaps, after all, as Harker astutely suggested, Lewiston would be satisfied with a partial payment and extend the rest of the note. While they were still consulting, word was brought in that Mr. Lewiston was there. Mr. Lewiston was a young man, small-featured, black-haired, smooth-shaven, and with an air of nattiness and fashion, set at odds at present by a very pale and anxious face and eager, dilated black eyes. He cut short Justin's greeting with the words: "I've just come over to speak about that note, Alexander." "Well, I was just wanting to speak to you about it myself," said Justin easily. "Have a cigar?"