He wished me to take my reports, which were merely field notes, and pull them into form as an article on Coxeyism. He would procure publication of it, in one of the monthly reviews perhaps, under his name if I didn’t mind, and he could adopt it whole, or under my own. It didn’t matter which. “An unhappy incident has just occurred in my office,” he said. “My private secretary had to be sent away suddenly. You might work in his room out there if it’s comfortable.” I sat down to the task at once, in the ante-room, at the vacant desk. Half an hour later, passing out, he dropped me word of where he was going and when he might be expected back, in case anyone should ask. In a little while the boy did ask. Either he had not been at his place when the president passed out, or else the president forgot to tell him, his habit being to leave word at the desk where I sat. Also the telephone rang several times and as there was no one else to do it I answered. This ambiguous arrangement continued, the president coming and going, leaving me always informed of his movements and asking me to be so good as to say this or that to persons who should call up on the telephone. It took two days to finish the article. He conceived a liking for my style of writing and asked me to edit and touch up a manuscript that had been giving him some trouble. Then it was to go over the proofs of a monograph he had in the printer’s hands. On the fifth day, about 4 o’clock, I was at work on these proofs and the president was in his office alone with the door closed when someone came in from the waiting room unannounced. I did not look up. Whoever it was stood looking at my back, then moved a little to one side to get an angular view, and a voice I recognized but could not instantly identify addressed me. “Hello, Coxey!” “Hello,” I said, looking round. It was the irritating man of the ferryboat incident. He sat down and ogled me offensively. “Are you the new private secretary?” “I don’t know what I am,” I said. “But you’re working for Jeremiah,” he said, jerking a glance at the proofs. “Oh, o-o-o! Toot-toot!” He was suddenly amused and shrewd. “You must be the man who sent him those reports on the march of Coxey’s Army. That’s it. Very fine reports they were. Most excellent nonsense. My name is Galt--Henry M. Galt.” “I’m pleased to meet you again,” I said, giving him my name in return. “And old jobbernowl hasn’t hired you yet!” he said. “I’ll see about it.” With that he got up abruptly and bolted into the president’s office, closing the door behind him. I hated him intensely, partly I suppose because unconsciously I transferred to him the feeling of humiliation and anger produced in me by that look from the girl who was with him on the ferryboat. It all came over me again. Half an hour later, as he was going out, he said: “All right, Coxey. You’ll be here for some time.”