I was interrupted at this point in my letter by the loud ringing of the front door bell. Glancing at the clock, I observed that it was eleven. Consequently, the servants must have gone to bed. Under these circumstances, a philosopher has to open the front door himself, or submit to a prolonged tintinnabulation. "Ting-a-ling-a, ling-a-ling-a-ling" went the bell again. "It must be a telegram," said Josephine. "I wonder what has happened?" "Or a dinner-invitation which the servant was told to deliver this morning," I answered. "One would suppose that, after turning out the gas in the hall, one could work without callers." Having lighted up, and having unbolted the inner door, I beheld, through the glass window of the outer, a young man in a slouch hat. Evidently he was not a telegraph-messenger or a domestic. Nor did he have exactly the aspect of a midnight marauder. Nevertheless, I opened the door merely a crack and inquired, gruffly: "What do you wish?" Said a blithe, friendly voice: "I saw your light, and I took the liberty of ringing. Can't you give me three thousand words on the death of the Czar of Russia?" Before he had finished this sentence, he had backed me, by his persuasive manner, from the vestibule into the hall, and I remembered vaguely that I had seen him somewhere. "I'm the local correspondent of the New York _Despatch_," he said, to refresh my memory. I recollected then that he had tried to interview me six months before on my domestic interior, and that I had politely declined the honor. He was a lean, alert, bright-eyed man of thirty-five with a pleasant smile. "Isn't it rather late to ring my door-bell?" I inquired, with dignity. (My mental language was, "What do you mean, you infernal young reprobate, by ringing my door-bell at this hour of the night on such an impudent errand?" But, in the presence of the press, even a philosopher is disposed to be diplomatic.) "I needed you, badly," was the reply. "I've got to wire to New York to-night three thousand words on the death of the Czar." "What do I know about the Czar of Russia? Why don't you go to the historians or politicians? There are several in the neighborhood. I'm a philosopher." "I've tried them," he said, with a patient smile. "They were out or in bed. Then I thought of you. Anything you would say on the subject would be read with great interest." "Pshaw!" I answered. By this time he had backed me into the dining-room, and, under the influence of diplomacy, I searched for a box of cigars. I had no intention of giving him a single word on the deceased ruler of all the Russias, but I wished to let myself down easy, so to speak, and retain his good-will.