Having returned home on the night train, John Bill climbed the stairway at the head of which his office was situated, and was engaged in preparing for his next issue. Although he felt sure that a large amount of important mail matter had arrived during his absence, it could not be found; and therefore the editor was in rather bad humor, as he produced a list of paid notices to be written, and made lazy preparation for writing them. The editor was always expecting important mail matter, and because it never came he almost concluded that the postmaster was in the intrigue against him. While thinking that he would include that official in the exposé he felt it his duty to write at some time in the future, a knock came at the door. He had heard no step ascending the stair, therefore he concluded it must be one of his young men; probably the pale one, who was wasting his life in chewing plug tobacco, and squirting it around in puddles, in order that he might realize on a joke which he had perpetrated by printing a sign in huge letters, requesting visitors not to spit on the floor. In response to his invitation a tall gentleman came in,--a stranger, dressed in a suit of black material that gave him the appearance of being much on the road, for it was untidy and unkempt. He looked a good deal like a genteel man who had been lately engaged in rough work, and John Bill noticed that he kept his left side turned from him. The stranger's hair, as well as his moustache and goatee, were bushy, and sprinkled with gray; and he had a rather peculiar pair of eyes, which he used to such an advantage that he seemed to remark everything in the room at a single glance. An odd man, John Bill thought; a man who might turn out to be anything surprising; so he looked at him curiously quite a long time. "You are Mr. Bill?" the stranger asked, after the two men had looked each other over to their joint satisfaction. The editor acknowledged his name by an inclination of the head, at the same time offering a chair. "I came in on the night train," the tall man said, seating himself with the left side of his face toward the door at which he had entered; "therefore I call upon you at this unseasonable hour to make a few inquiries with reference to your place. It is not probable that I shall become an advertiser, or a patron of any kind; but I think you may depend on it that I will shortly furnish you with an item of news. I have read your editorial paragraphs with a good deal of interest, and concluded that you could give me the information desired."