“I have much more than _The Public Square_ could use in months. It really should get out into the broad market. The end of one world and the birth of another took place that Sunday in Amritsar--all in miniature, you understand----” He spoke of Gandhi, whose name had scarcely been heard at this time in America, and touched upon the story of _maidan_. “Sure,” said Mr. Heidt. “Sure, it’s a big yarn, but months ago. No way to substantiate it. You’re a little out of perspective, Cobden, seeing it all first hand that way.” “I can substantiate it,” Dicky said queerly. “I know, but the whole story’s a trouble-maker. Far as I can make out, this Gandhi is a sort of sanctimonious Lenine, and we’re not promoting any kind of Lenines just now. Red roughhouses all over the world, but we’re not advertising the fact. The best newspaper interests here and in England are letting that sort of thing die down. Everybody’s healthily intent on getting back to business right now. Make a corking fiction setting--your Amritsar--series of short stories that would do no harm.” Thus Richard had his American perspective restored. LIII THE WHITE LIGHT AGAIN DICKY was considerably subdued. India had permitted his ideas to romp at large. He had forgotten that, home again, these ideas must be brought down to an orderly trudge. America, as a whole, seemed one-pointedly trying to get back to work after the War, calling all protestors untimely and in bad taste. Dicky thought out the situation minutely and severely during the three full travel days to Chicago. At the end of each day he was somewhat exhausted from the big bonfires that had taken place within him--piles of rubbish, glamour and the like. In Chicago he procured two numbers of _The Public Square_ preceding the current issue, and before his eyes was the manner in which Pidge had “sprung” the Amritsar story. He felt the magic of her working with him in an altogether new way. The latest number confessed, not without grace, that the story of Gandhi and Amritsar had aroused the more open-minded element of the American public, as nothing else since the War; but thanks to Chris Heidt, the returning correspondent watched the rising tide of public interest in his work, as a spectator unexpectant, instead of a performer who fancies he has the world by the tail. It dawned on him, however, that Chris Heidt hadn’t known quite all that was going on in America under the homely thunders of trade. He reached New York in the early evening and went to Fiftieth Street at once. There he had dinner, and an hour of talk, before he rang up Mrs. Melton at the _Sennacherib_. “Is this Mr. Cobden?” a voice asked presently. “Yes.” “Mrs. Melton left word for you to go to 54 Harrow Street--to the parlor on the second floor, the card says.”