While he read the second half, Dicky heard Higgins thresh and mutter, and finally call for the rest--old sore-eyed Higgins, who knew a story when he saw one, who had read his eyes out on poor stories looking for the Story of the Age.... Dicky went back to the reception room. “I’ve read it. Mr. Higgins is reading it now. I think he’ll want it, Mr. Naidu. If you leave your address, we’ll mail you an offer to-morrow----” “I will take two hundred dollars for the story, but I must have the money to-day.” Dicky laughed quietly. “I’m afraid the countingroom won’t appreciate that. Countingroom’s not adaptable. It’s intricate, in fact; checks signed and countersigned.... Besides your price is severe for us--unknown name and all that. Oh, it’s not too much, only for us, you know.” All the time he talked, Dicky knew Mr. Naidu would get his money, and get it to-day. A man with a story like this could get anything. He could write it on wood chips and bring the manuscript in a gunny sack.... “I’ll give him my personal check,” he told Higgins, a moment later. “The office can reimburse me.” “I always forget you have a piece of change in your own name,” Higgins remarked indulgently. “Don’t ever let it interfere with your work, Dicky.” “My work to-day is to get that manuscript in our vault. Later,” he added to himself, “my work is to write a story as good as that.” “He might take less than two hundred----” John Higgins suggested in uncertain tone. “I can’t bring that up--again,” Dicky said. “I couldn’t either,” said the editor. “Maybe we are both crazy with the heat--steam heat. But I’ll stand by and see that you get your money. You’ll have to go out with him to get cash on your personal check.” Dicky and Mr. Naidu were in the street. It was too late for the bank, but the son of the trowel makers found a friend of the family with currency. A rainy dusk in Twenty-third Street near the Avenue, when he took Mr. Naidu’s hand, having turned over the money. “I have your address, I may hunt you up. You won’t forget _The Public Square_, when you have another story as good as this?” “Oh, no,” said the Hindu, “nor you, Mr. Cobden. Good-by.” Dicky turned to look after him. He reflected that he hadn’t even learned if Mr. Naidu were hungry. He wished he had given him his umbrella. He felt a curious desire to follow; a sense vague, as yet, that his way, the way of his Big Story, lay after the Oriental, and not back toward the office. III A FISH OMELET