At the sound of his voice, Jimmy's face lit up with genuine pleasure. He had known Douglas Kelly well on the China Coast, when the other was editing a local paper for a starvation wage, and, as Kelly said, he had written him many a column to fill up space with when both copy and advertisements were short. The British and American community, being absorbed in trade, and knowing nothing of literature, and often very little of the English language, as is the way of its kind, had failed to see the genius under the wild and not too temperate exterior, and had frowned on the young editor as a rather scandalous person entirely devoid of commercial instincts; but Jimmy had always stood by him, and when a sudden access of wealth, in the form of a draft for sixty pounds for a series of short stories in an American magazine, had enabled Kelly to say good-bye both to the China Coast and to his creditors, Grierson has regretted him as much, or even more, than had the latter. "So you've come to Fleet Street, at last," Kelly repeated. "I knew you would. And I suppose you are going to enter into competition with me. I believe you are the one man of whom I am really afraid." Jimmy laughed. "I only landed to-day, and I wandered down here by chance. As for writing, I have done very little since I saw you off on that tramp steamer. There were two or three acquaintances of yours watching the mail boat next day on the chance of finding you." "Herbst, I suppose, and the other squarehead from the hotel--what was his name?--oh, Heine, and that uncleanly Greek tailor. They were a dull lot, and I've forgotten them long ago. Tell me about yourself. Where have you been?" "India, Australia, and the Dago Republics, where I saw the beginning and the end of various presidents. I made a couple of trips on a blockade runner, and went on a hidden treasure hunt. It sounds all right, thrilling and exciting, yet, when I size it up in my own mind, it comes down to a record of fever and disappointment; with a few purple patches which were so good that, somehow, they seem to have come out of another man's book, instead of being my own experiences." Kelly stared into his glass. "I know," he said very quietly. "I know the game, though I got out of it sooner than you did, being wiser, as I always told you I was. I suppose you know I'm famous?" Jimmy smiled; long ago, Douglas Kelly had explained to him his theory of self-advertisement, how, once he was strong enough to do so, he intended to go in for a regular system of blatant, unblushing egotism, which would pay equally little regard to the feelings of others and to the recognised canons of veracity. Now, it was evident that he was translating his theory into practice. "Even in the Dago countries we used to get papers containing articles of yours," Jimmy said. "And I saw a review of one of your books. Did you put some of our old friends of the China Coast into them?"