“Well, great God!” yelled Burns, “what have we got here--a gold brick?” He rose with a vivid sneer on his red face, plunged his hands in his pockets, and took two or three nervous strides across the room. Kittrell looked at him, and slowly his eyes blazed out of a face that had gone white on the instant. “What did you say, sir?” he demanded. Burns thrust his red face, with its prognathic jaw, menacingly toward Kittrell. “I said that in you we’d got a gold brick.” “You?” said Kittrell. “What have you to do with it? I don’t work for you.” “You don’t? Well, I guess it’s us that puts up--” “Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” said Glenn, waving a white, pacificatory hand. “Yes, let me deal with this, if you please,” said Benson, looking hard at Burns. The street-car man sneered again, then, in ostentatious contempt, looked out the window. And in the stillness Benson continued: “Mr. Kittrell, think a minute. Is your decision final?” “It is final, Mr. Benson,” said Kittrell. “And as for you, Burns,” he glared angrily at the man, “I wouldn’t draw that cartoon for all the dirty money that all the bribing street-car companies in the world could put into Mr. Glenn’s bank here. Good evening, gentlemen.” It was not until he stood again in his own home that Kittrell felt the physical effects which the spiritual squalor of such a scene was certain to produce in a nature like his. “Neil! What is the matter?” Edith fluttered toward him in alarm. He sank into a chair, and for a moment he looked as if he would faint, but he looked wanly up at her and said: “Nothing; I’m all right; just a little weak. I’ve gone through a sickening, horrible scene--” “Dearest!” “And I’m off the _Telegraph_--and a man once more!” He bent over, with his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and when Edith put her calm, caressing hand on his brow, she found that it was moist from nervousness. Presently he was able to tell her the whole story. “It was, after all, Edith, a fitting conclusion to my experience on the _Telegraph_. I suppose, though, that to people who are used to ten thousand a year such scenes are nothing at all.” She saw in this trace of his old humor that he was himself again, and she hugged his head to her bosom. “Oh, dearest,” she said, “I’m proud of you--and happy again.” They were, indeed, both happy, happier than they had been in weeks. The next morning after breakfast, she saw by his manner, by the humorous, almost comical expression about his eyes, that he had an idea. In this mood of satisfaction--this mood that comes too seldom in the artist’s life--she knew it was wise to let him alone. And he lighted his pipe and went to work. She heard him now and then, singing or whistling or humming; she scented his pipe, then cigarettes; then, at last, after two hours, he called in a loud, triumphant tone: “Oh, Edith!”