I was writing a pæan to a great coloniser. That sort of thing was in the air then. I was drawn into it, carried away by my subject. Perhaps I let it do so because it was so little familiar to my lines of thought. It was fresh ground and I revelled in it. I committed myself to that kind of emotional, lyrical outburst that one dislikes so much on re-reading. I was half conscious of the fact, but I ignored it. The thunderstorm was over, and there was a moist sparkling freshness in the air when I hurried with my copy to the _Hour_ office in the Avenue de l'Opéra. I wished to be rid of it, to render impossible all chance of revision on the morrow. I wanted, too, to feel elated; I expected it. It was a right. At the office I found the foreign correspondent, a little cosmopolitan Jew whose eyebrows began their growth on the bridge of his nose. He was effusive and familiar, as the rest of his kind. "Hullo, Granger," was his greeting. I was used to regarding myself as fallen from a high estate, but I was not yet so humble in spirit as to relish being called Granger by a stranger of his stamp. I tried to freeze him politely. "Read your stuff in the _Hour_," was his rejoinder; "jolly good I call it. Been doing old Red-Beard? Let's have a look. Yes, yes. That's the way--that's the real thing--I call it. Must have bored you to death ... old de Mersch I mean. I ought to have had the job, you know. My business, interviewing people in Paris. But _I_ don't mind. Much rather you did it than I. You do it a heap better." I murmured thanks. There was a pathos about the sleek little man--a pathos that is always present in the type. He seemed to be trying to assume a deprecating equality. "Where are you going to-night?" he asked, with sudden effusiveness. I was taken aback. One is not used to being asked these questions after five minutes' acquaintance. I said that I had no plans. "Look here," he said, brightening up, "come and have dinner with me at Breguet's, and look in at the Opera afterward. We'll have a real nice chat." I was too tired to frame an adequate excuse. Besides, the little man was as eager as a child for a new toy. We went to Breguet's and had a really excellent dinner. "Always come here," he said; "one meets a lot of swells. It runs away with a deal of money--but I don't care to do things on the cheap, not for the _Hour_, you know. You can always be certain when I say that I have a thing from a senator that he is a senator, and not an old woman in a paper kiosque. Most of them do that sort of thing, you know." "I always wondered," I said, mildly. "That's de Sourdam I nodded to as we came in, and that old chap there is Pluyvis--the Affaire man, you know. I must have a word with him in a minute, if you'll excuse me."