Now that the matter was presented to him, he was rather glad to be leaving. Quarters somewhere in mid-town, more in consonance with his augmented income, suggested themselves as highly desirable. Since the affray he had been the object of irksome attentions from his fellow lodgers. It is difficult to say whether he found the more unendurable young Wickert's curiosity regarding details, Hainer's pompous adulation, or Lambert's admiring but jocular attitude. The others deemed it their duty never to refrain from some reference to the subject wherever and whenever they encountered him. The one exception was Miss Westlake. She congratulated him once, quietly but with warm sincerity; and when next she came to his door, dealt with another topic. "Mrs. Brashear tells me that you are leaving, Mr. Banneker." "Did she tell you why? That she has fired me out?" "No. She didn't." Banneker, a little surprised and touched at the landlady's reticence, explained. "Ah, well," commented Miss Westlake, "you would soon have outgrown us in any case." "I'm not so sure. Where one lives doesn't so much matter. And I'm a creature of habit." "I think that you are going to be a very big man, Mr. Banneker." "Do you?" He smiled down at her. "Now, why?" She did not answer his smile. "You've got power," she replied. "And you have mastered your medium--or gone far toward it." "I'm grateful for your good opinion," he began courteously; but she broke in on him, shaking her head. "If it were mine alone, it wouldn't matter. It's the opinion of those who know. Mr. Banneker, I've been taking a liberty." "You're the last person in the world to do that, I should think," he replied smilingly. "But I have. You may remember my asking you once when those little sketches that I retyped so often were to be published." "Yes. I never did anything with them." "I did. I showed them to Violet Thornborough. She is an old friend." Ignorant of the publication world outside of Park Row, Banneker did not recognize a name, unknown to the public, which in the inner literary world connoted all that was finest, most perceptive, most discriminating and helpful in selective criticism. Miss Thornborough had been the first to see and foster half of the glimmering and feeble radiances which had later grown to be the manifest lights of the magazine and book world, thanks largely to her aid and encouragement. The next name mentioned by Miss Westlake was well enough known to Banneker, however. The critic, it appears, had, with her own hands, borne the anonymous, typed copies to the editorial sanctum of the foremost of monthlies, and, claiming a prerogative, refused to move aside from the pathway of orderly business until the Great Gaines himself, editor and autocrat of the publication, had read at least one of them. So the Great Gaines indulged Miss Thornborough by reading one. He then indulged himself by reading three more.