At five o'clock Banneker arrived, having been bailed out after some difficulty, for the police were frightened and ugly, foreseeing that this swift vengeance upon the notorious gang, meted out by a private hand, would throw a vivid light upon their own inefficiency and complaisance. Happily the District Attorney's office was engaged in one of its periodical feuds with the Police Department over some matter of graft gone astray, and was more inclined to make a cat's-paw than a victim out of Banneker. Though inwardly strung to a high pitch, for the police officials had kept him sleepless through the night by their habitual inquisition, Banneker held himself well in hand as he went to the City Desk to report gravely that he had been unable to come earlier. "So we understand, Mr. Banneker," said Mr. Greenough, his placid features for once enlivened. "That was a good job you did. I congratulate you." "Thank you, Mr. Greenough," returned Banneker. "I had to do it or get done. And, at that, it wasn't much of a trick. They were a yellow lot." "Very likely: very likely. You've handled a gun before." "Only in practice." "Ever shot anybody before?" "No, sir." "How does it feel?" inquired the city editor, turning his pale eyes on the other and fussing nervously with his fingers. "At first you want to go on killing," answered Banneker. "Then, when it's over, there's a big let-down. It doesn't seem as if it were you." He paused and added boyishly: "The evening papers are making an awful fuss over it." "What do you expect? It isn't every day that a Wild West Show with real bullets and blood is staged in this effete town." "Of course I knew there'd be a kick-up about it," admitted Banneker. "But, some way--well, in the West, if a gang gets shot up, there's quite a bit of talk for a while, and the boys want to buy the drinks for the fellow that does it, but it doesn't spread all over the front pages. I suppose I still have something of the Western view.... How much did you want of this, Mr. Greenough?" he concluded in a business-like tone. "You are not doing the story, Mr. Banneker. Tommy Burt is." "I'm not writing it? Not any of it?" "Certainly not. You're the hero"--there was a hint of elongation of the first syllable which might have a sardonic connotation from those pale and placid lips--"not the historian. Burt will interview you." "A Patriot reporter has already. I gave him a statement." Mr. Greenough frowned. "It would have been as well to have waited. However." "Oh, Banneker," put in Mallory, "Judge Enderby wants you to call at his office." "Who's Judge Enderby?" "Chief Googler of the Goo-Goos; the Law Enforcement Society lot. They call him the ablest honest lawyer in New York. He's an old crab. Hates the newspapers, particularly us." "Why?" "He cherishes some theory," said Mr. Greenough in his most toneless voice, "that a newspaper ought to be conducted solely in the interests of people like himself."