Micky finished dressing, and left the house for the restaurant, at which he was accustomed to obtain his meals. On the way he passed an attractive door. He hesitated, halted and turned back. "One won't hurt," he muttered, as he disappeared inside. "Just for an appetizer." Breakfast finished, Micky, with a renewed sparkle in his eyes, plunged headlong into his self-appointed task, and it was a formidable one. There were sundry peculiar documents to scan. Obstacles in getting at them had to be surmounted, either through subtlety or a bluff, and O'Byrn was a past master in both departments. There were some men to see. Some could be handled with a convenient disguising of the real intention. Others, made to admit damaging matters through cowardly fears, were left in the hope that they had secured immunity for themselves. There was also the omnipresent danger, most dreaded by newspaper men on the track of a big story, of competitors who must be sedulously avoided. O'Byrn dodged them all, though with some narrow escapes, and it became evident that the story, in every detail, was to be his and his alone. As Micky pursued his perilous though fascinating task, the story grew, gathering black force and sinister proportions. As the busy hours swept on, crowded with strained effort, the Irishman felt to the full the strange, breathless zest felt only by the veteran newsgetter; hot on the trail of a big story, warned constantly by the remorseless ticks of his watch of fast slipping time that waits for no man. The hungry presses must be fed at the appointed hour. Brain, hand, resource and tireless effort must combine to furnish the monster's food. So O'Byrn rushed through the teeming hours. He cut out luncheon, gulping down a glass of whisky in place of it. He had been dramming at intervals since breakfast, and he no longer approached the bar with hesitancy. The excitement of his quest made him reckless and the stuff served as an exhilarant, though he had not yet begun to seriously feel its effects. He was completely engrossed in his story. He scurried here and there, as need required, gathering force like a machine under the quickening beat of the controlling engine. He was driven resistlessly on by that steadiest, most unfaltering of human impulses, the quickened news instinct. It was a task before which many a veteran would have quailed, but O'Byrn did not know how to lie down. He had, too, a distinct advantage in his wonderful memory. It enabled him to carry away valuable material gained in conversations where the producing of a notebook would have been fatal. It was well toward evening that Slade met him unostentatiously in a quiet place. "What luck?" he inquired eagerly.