Mr. Spence replaced his eye-glasses, and stretching his hand to the silver box at his elbow, extracted from it one of the long cigars sheathed in gold-leaf which were reserved for his private consumption. The secretary hastened to tender him a match, and for a moment he puffed in silence. When he spoke again it was in a different note. “I’ve got about all the bother I can handle just now, without this nonsense of Draper’s. That was one of the Trustees of the College with me. It seems the _Flashlight_ has been trying to stir up a fuss--” Mr. Spence paused, and turned his _pince-nez_ on his secretary. “You haven’t heard from them?” he asked. “From the _Flashlight?_ No.” Millner’s surprise was genuine. He detected a gleam of relief behind Mr. Spence’s glasses. “It may be just malicious talk. That’s the worst of good works; they bring out all the meanness in human nature. And then there are always women mixed up in them, and there never was a woman yet who understood the difference between philanthropy and business.” He drew again at his cigar, and then, with an unwonted movement, leaned forward and mechanically pushed the box toward Millner. “Help yourself,” he said. Millner, as mechanically, took one of the virginally cinctured cigars, and began to undo its wrappings. It was the first time he had ever been privileged to detach that golden girdle, and nothing could have given him a better measure of the importance of the situation, and of the degree to which he was apparently involved in it. “You remember that San Pablo rubber business? That’s what they’ve been raking up,” said Mr. Spence abruptly. Millner paused in the act of striking a match. Then, with an appreciable effort of the will, he completed the gesture, applied the flame to his cigar, and took a long inhalation. The cigar was certainly delicious.