"They say," pursued the editor, heedless, "that the inmates are in many cases badly lodged and insufficiently clad, and that in consequence they are usually cold. It is asserted that they are never fed--except to the worms. Statements have been made to the effect that males and females are permitted to occupy the same quarters, to the incalculable detriment of public morality. Many clandestine villainies are alleged of this fiend in human shape, and it is desirable that his underground methods be unearthed in the _Malefactor_. If he resists we will drag his family skeleton from the privacy of his domestic closet. There is money in it for the paper, fame for you--are you ambitious, 216?" "I am--bitious." "Go, then," cried the editor, rising and waving his hand imperiously--"go and 'seek the bubble reputation'." "The bubble shall be sought," the young man replied, and leaping into a man-hole in the floor, disappeared. A moment later the editor, who after dismissing his subordinate, had stood motionless, as if lost in thought, sprang suddenly to the man-hole and shouted down it: "Hello, 216?" "Aye, aye, sir," came up a faint and far reply. "About that 'bubble reputation'--you understand, I suppose, that the reputation which you are to seek is that of the other man." In the execution of his duty, in the hope of his employer's approval, in the costume of his profession, Mr. Longbo Spittleworth, otherwise known as 216, has already occupied a place in the mind's eye of the intelligent reader. Alas for poor Mr. Inhumio! A few days after these events that fearless, independent and enterprising guardian and guide of the public, the San Francisco _Daily Malefactor_, contained a whole-page article whose headlines are here presented with some necessary typographical mitigation: