"It isn't what I want, thank you," said John. "We don't always get what we want," snapped Cane. "I can't do anything else for you," he added with an air of ending the matter. "You can if you will, Mr. Cane, please. You know Mr. Walsh." "Well?" "I want to see him." "Newspaper editors are very busy men." "They've always time for good business," urged John. "H'm--how old are you?--you can get what you want, I see." "Nineteen, with lots of drive in me." "You want to get on a newspaper?" "Yes--I'm determined to." "I'll ring up Walsh. Go to his office at five to-day. He'll be in then." "Thank you very much." Cane stood up, buttoned his coat, put on a glove. "I'm going now," he said to his assistant. "I'll sign those cheques this afternoon. Send back Professor Railing's articles on Shakespeare--there's nothing bar his resurrection could make a noise for him." He strode to the door. "How's Mr. Vernley?" he asked John. "Very well, sir, thank you." "And Muriel?--a bright child that!" A light leapt in John's eyes. The other man understood at once and gave him the first warm human look. "Oh--she's very well, sir." The door closed, he was gone. "There! what do you think of him?" asked the assistant, somewhat proudly, John thought. "He'll play bridge at the Reform until four, dance at Murray's during tea, and rush back here before dressing for the opera. And those simpletons," with a wave towards the pile of the rejected, "think he spends his time discovering them for the next number. Our next specialty in verse--is a mechanic poet. There have been navy poets, tramp poets, fishermen poets, postmen poets, porter poets, but no one's found a mechanic poet. I have, and strange to say he doesn't write about lathes, cams or beltings. He's gone back to pure Greek. Here's 'Iphigenia in Balham.' Victorian bricks and mortar mixed with ancient Greece. We've prevailed on the Bishop of London to quote it next month. That'll start the _Church News_; an interview in the _Daily Mail_ with the new poet, and we are well into a second edition. Now let's go to lunch. I don't know your name. I'll call you Narcissus--listening to my echoes." "That's a lucky shot," said John. "That is my nickname. Dean's my name." "Ha!" said the assistant editor. "You are a reincarnation. I must take you to a lady friend of mine. She will see the aura of a chlamys under your flannel shirt. My name, too, is strange--not what you would think for a moment. Not poetical or suggestive, scarcely practical even--just Smith--you start at the revelation. It is distinguished only by having neither a 'y' nor an 'e'. We belong to the original Smiths--the blacksmiths. Ready?" Crossing the Strand, John began to wonder if this was the inevitable end of all attempts to do work in London. It was good-natured of this stranger to take him out. He was amused at his torrential witty chatter, but it was not solving the all-pressing problem of getting a living.