The editor cast an acute eye over the Chief’s flamboyance. “A shade on the strong side, aren’t we?” But his tone had lightened considerably. To the mind of Bennet Gage the mysterious death of an American labor leader was a far more significant matter than a calculated affront to several hundred million people. “The stronger the better,” was the curt answer of the Colossus. “I have very good reasons.” Mr. Gage did not question that. “They can be bullied to any amount, dear souls!” The Chief smiled sardonically. “And a little demonstration of our power is called for just now. Every newspaper’s first duty is to impress the groundlings. But even that is not our real aim.” With an abrupt laugh, which to Bennet Gage had a meaning far deeper than mere irony, he suddenly dismissed the subject. What an enigma the man was! That thought obsessed the mind of the editor of the _Planet_ as he went out of the room. XVI After Mr. Gage had gone, Saul Hartz sat some time at his table in deep thought. Then he began to pace the room slowly and heavily, in a state of indecision quite alien to his character. Finally, by pressing the bell once, he summoned Helen Sholto from the next room, issued a few brief but clear directions in regard to the pile of letters on his table, taking care, however, as he did so, to assure himself that the most important one was in his coat pocket. And then putting on overcoat and hat he affirmed his intention of lunching at the Imperium Club and the probability of a return to the Office about four o’clock. Mr. Hartz’s slow walk from Fleet Street along the Strand across Trafalgar Square was without real incident until he reached Pall Mall. At various points along the route it was illuminated by flaming news bills, his own and his rivals’, proclaiming “Mysterious Death of Famous Labor Leader.” At the very dangerous corner, however, where the Carlton Hotel debauches from the Haymarket, and where more than one recognized ornament of human society has paid toll to Moloch in his modern guise, the Colossus came within an ace of being cut off. A mechanical contrivance propelled by a simian shape in oilskins and a peaked cap, one of Plato’s two-legged animals without feathers, crashed round the fatal corner almost at the precise instant that Saul Hartz, fathoms deep in thought, incautiously left the pavement. How he managed to escape being run over was purely a matter for the ironical deities who had his affairs in hand. Escape he did, however. And so rudely had his powerful mind been summoned to the needs of the moment that he was able to observe that the engine of destruction was armed fore and aft with placards, bearing the single word GARLAND The contraption itself was painted a flaming yellow, the sign manual of the Universal Press, and surmounting it like a halo was its world-famous motto: FIRST WITH THE NEWS AS USUAL