"He blows in," said Master Maloney, aggrieved, "and asks is de editor dere. I tells him no, 'cos youse said youse wasn't, and he nips me by the ear when I gets busy to stop him gettin' t'roo." "Comrade Maloney," said Psmith, "you are a martyr. What would Horatius have done if somebody had nipped him by the ear when he was holding the bridge? The story does not consider the possibility. Yet it might have made all the difference. Did the gentleman state his business?" "Nope. Just tried to butt t'roo." "Another of these strong silent men. The world is full of us. These are the perils of the journalistic life. You will be safer and happier when you are rounding up cows on your mustang." "I wonder what he wanted," said Billy, when they were back again in the inner room. "Who can say, Comrade Windsor? Possibly our autographs. Possibly five minutes' chat on general subjects." "I don't like the look of him," said Billy. "Whereas what Comrade Maloney objected to was the feel of him. In what respect did his look jar upon you? His clothes were poorly cut, but such things, I know, leave you unmoved." "It seems to me," said Billy thoughtfully, "as if he came just to get a sight of us." "And he got it. Ah, Providence is good to the poor." "Whoever's behind those tenements isn't going to stick at any odd trifle. We must watch out. That man was probably sent to mark us down for one of the gangs. Now they'll know what we look like, and they can get after us." "These are the drawbacks to being public men, Comrade Windsor. We must bear them manfully, without wincing." Billy turned again to his work. "I'm not going to wince," he said, "so's you could notice it with a microscope. What I'm going to do is to buy a good big stick. And I'd advise you to do the same." * * * It was by Psmith's suggestion that the editorial staff of _Cosy Moments_ dined that night in the roof-garden at the top of the Astor Hotel. "The tired brain," he said, "needs to recuperate. To feed on such a night as this in some low-down hostelry on the level of the street, with German waiters breathing heavily down the back of one's neck and two fiddles and a piano whacking out 'Beautiful Eyes' about three feet from one's tympanum, would be false economy. Here, fanned by cool breezes and surrounded by fair women and brave men, one may do a bit of tissue-restoring. Moreover, there is little danger up here of being slugged by our moth-eaten acquaintance of this morning. A man with trousers like his would not be allowed in. We shall probably find him waiting for us at the main entrance with a sand-bag, when we leave, but, till then--" He turned with gentle grace to his soup.