Mr. King raised his eyebrows and became a rosier red. He was evidently preparing to rebuke this audacious intrusion into his private affairs by a stranger whose card had been handed to him not ten minutes before. But Howard’s tone and manner were simple and sincere. And they happened to bring into Mr. King’s mind a rush of memories of his youth and his wife. She had married him on faith. They had come to New York fifteen years before, he to get a place as reporter on the _News-Record_, she to start a boarding-house; he doubting and trembling, she with courage and confidence for two. He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and opened the book of memory at the place where the leaves most easily fell apart: He is coming home at one in the morning, worn out, sick at heart from the day’s buffetings. As he puts his key into the latch, the door opens. There stands a handsome girl; her face is flushed; her eyes are bright; her lips are held up for him to kiss; she shows no trace of a day that began hours before his and has been a succession of exasperations and humiliations against which her sensitive nature, trained in the home of her father, a distinguished up-the-state Judge, gives her no protection, “Victory,” she whispers, her arms about his neck and her head upon his coat collar. “Victory! We are seventy-two cents ahead on the week, and everything paid up!” Mr. King opened his eyes--they had been closed less than five seconds. “Well, let it be twenty--though just why I’m sure I don’t know. And we’ll give you a four weeks’ trial. When will you begin?” “Now,” answered the young man, glancing about the room. “And I shall try to show that I appreciate your consideration, whether I deserve it or not.” It was a large bare room, low of ceiling. Across one end were five windows overlooking from a great height the tempest that rages about the City Hall day and night with few lulls and no pauses. Mr. King’s roll-top desk was at the first window. Under each of the other windows was a broad flat table desk--for copy-readers. At the farthest of these sat the City Editor--thin, precise-looking, with yellow skin, hollow cheeks, ragged grey-brown moustache, ragged scant grey-brown hair and dark brown eyes. He looked nervously tired and, because brown was his prevailing shade, dusty. He rose as Mr. King came with young Howard. “Here, Mr. Bowring, is a young man from Yale. He wishes you to teach him how to write. Mr. Howard, Mr. Bowring. I hope you gentlemen will get on comfortably together.” Mr. King went back to his desk. Mr. Bowring and Howard looked each at the other. Mr. Bowring smiled, with good-humour, without cordiality. “Let me see, where shall we put you?” And his glance wandered along the rows of sloping table-desks--those nearer the windows lighted by daylight; those farther away, by electric lamps. Even on that cool, breezy August afternoon the sunlight and fresh air did not penetrate far into the room.