When he appeared in the hall downstairs, and Mrs. Perdie hurried forth to give a little motherly advice, he looked such a slim picture of radiant youth, his dark eyes shining, his face gleaming, with high spirits bubbling over, that she lost the opening words of her prepared overture, and worshipped for a moment, after which her chance was gone, for Captain Fisher emerged from the drawing-room, newspaper in hand. He flourished it in John's face. "Egad, sir, it's great--I've not laughed so much for years--you've got the real touch--I always thought those Bohemians were mad." He touched his forehead with the rolled-up copy of the _Daily Post_. "May I look a moment?" asked John, a little bewildered. He opened the paper on the third page and saw his name in black type. The editor had put it to the description of the Artists Union meeting. John suppressed a shout of triumph. There was his name true enough, "John Dean," with three quarters of a column of close print following! Of course, the House of Commons was not sitting, so space was plentiful; still there was his name, for all the world to see! The omnibus that carried him on its top that gay spring morning as it wound its way past the Victoria Station down Victoria Street, under the grey front of Westminster Abbey façade, on up lordly Whitehall, might have been the steeds of Apollo the sun-god, so radiantly rode youth through the world, all civilisation singing about him, organised for his delight. He remembered hearing an odd remark of Merritt's one night. "The first time you hit a bull's eye with the Chief, he gives you credit for it--there's your name on the target--but you've to be a marksman for that to happen." And it had happened. For the first time he experienced confidence, he was now conscious of approval. Before, it had been like dropping his articles down a drain. They disappeared for ever. Merritt said nothing to him at the office, but in the afternoon, as he sat writing a letter in the reporters' room, the door of Merritt's little office opened. There was a sound of laughter within, and John caught sight of Phipps, who had just returned from a conference at Vienna, on which he had been writing with customary brilliance. John had never spoken to their leading man, who was as dizzily remote from his humble inquest-police-court haunting orbit, as the Pleiades from the sun. "Dean," called Merritt, putting his head round the doorway. John went in. "I want to introduce you to Burton Phipps," he said. Phipps rose and held out his hand to him. John could not see him clearly in the sensation of the moment. Why was he so ridiculously sensitive that his eyes watered, whenever something really wonderful happened? He gulped and heard Phipps praising and laughing about his article. "Are you doing anything?" asked Phipps. "No, sir." "Come out and have tea with me then. Good-bye, Merritt." "Good-bye--Phipps." John followed as in a dream.