'Well, who else is there?' urged Sidney with mock _naïveté_. 'I went down there once and saw the shanty. The editorial sanctum was crowded. Poor Raphael was surrounded by the queerest-looking set of creatures I ever clapped eyes on. There was a quaint lunatic in a check suit, describing his apocalyptic visions; a dragoman with sore eyes and a grievance against the Board of Guardians; a venerable son of Jerusalem, with a most artistic white beard, who had covered the editorial table with carved nick-nacks in olive and sandalwood; an inventor who had squared the circle and the problem of perpetual motion, but could not support himself; a Roumanian exile with a scheme for fertilising Palestine; and a wild-eyed, hatchet-faced Hebrew poet who told me I was a famous patron of learning, and sent me his book soon after with a Hebrew inscription which I couldn't read, and a request for a cheque, which I didn't write. I thought I just capped the company of oddities, when in came a sallow, red-haired chap, with the extraordinary name of Karlkammer, and kicked up a deuce of a shine with Raphael for altering his letter. Raphael mildly hinted that the letter was written in such unintelligible English that he had to grapple with it for an hour before he could reduce it to the coherence demanded of print. But it was no use--it seems Raphael had made him say something heterodox he didn't mean, and he insisted on being allowed to reply to his own letter! He had brought the counterblast with him--six sheets of foolscap, with all the _t's_ uncrossed--and insisted on signing it with his own name. I said: "Why not? Set a Karlkammer to answer to a Karlkammer." But Raphael said it would make the paper a laughing-stock, and between the dread of that and the consciousness of having done the man a wrong, he was quite unhappy. He treats all his visitors with angelic consideration, when in another newspaper office the very office-boy would snub them. Of course, nobody has a bit of consideration for him, or his time, or his purse.' 'Poor Raphael!' murmured Esther, smiling sadly at the grotesque images conjured up by Sidney's description. 'I go down there now whenever I want models,' concluded Sidney gravely. 'Well, it is only right to hear what these poor people have to say,' Addie observed. 'What is the paper for, except to right wrongs?' 'Primitive person!' said Sidney. 'A paper exists to make a profit.' 'Raphael's doesn't,' retorted Addie. 'Of course not,' laughed Sidney. 'It never will so long as there's a conscientious editor at the helm. Raphael flatters nobody, and reserves his praises for people with no control of the communal advertisements. Why, it quite preys upon his mind to think that he is linked to an advertisement canvasser with a gorgeous imagination, who goes about representing to the unwary Christian that the _Flag_ has a circulation of fifteen hundred.' 'Dear me!' said Addie, a smile of humour lighting up her beautiful features.