"I shouldn't think you'd like to do it, Maxwell," said Ricker, kindly. "It isn't in your line, is it? Better give it to some of the other fellows." "It's more in my line than you suppose, Mr. Ricker," said the young fellow. "It's a subject I've looked up a great deal lately. I once thought"--he looked down bashfully--"of trying to write a play about a defaulter, and I got together a good many facts about defalcation. You've no idea how common it is; it's about the commonest fact of our civilization." "Ah! Is that so?" asked Ricker with ironical deference to the bold generalizer. "Who else is 'onto' this thing?" "Pinney, of the _Events_." "Well, he's a dangerous rival, in some ways," said Ricker. "When it comes to slush and a whitewash brush, I don't think you're a match for him. But perhaps you don't intend to choose the same weapons." Ricker pulled down the green-lined pasteboard peak that he wore over his forehead by gaslight, and hitched his chair round to his desk again, and Maxwell knew that he was authorized to do the work. He got no word from the detective, who had given him a hint of the affair, to go ahead the night after his return from Hatboro', as he had expected, but he knew that the fact could not be kept back, and he worked as hard at his report as Pinney and Pinney's wife had worked at theirs. He waited till the next morning to begin, however, for he was too fagged after he came home from the Hilarys'; he rose early and got himself a cup of tea over the gas-burner; before the house was awake he was well on in his report. By nightfall he had finished it, and then he carried it to Ricker. The editor had not gone to dinner yet, and he gave Maxwell's work the critical censure of a hungry man. It was in two separate parts: one, a careful and lucid statement of all the facts which had come to Maxwell's knowledge, in his quality of reporter, set down without sensation, and in that self-respectful decency of tone which the _Abstract_ affected; the other, an editorial comment upon the facts. Ricker read the first through without saying anything; when he saw what the second was, he pushed up his green-lined peak, and said, "Hello, young man! Who invited you to take the floor?" "Nobody. I found I couldn't embody my general knowledge of defalcation in the report without impertinence, and as I had to get my wisdom off my mind somehow, I put it in editorial shape. I don't expect you to take it. Perhaps I can sell it somewhere." Ricker seemed to pay no attention to his explanation. He went on reading the manuscript, and when he ended, he took up the report again, and compared it with the editorial in length. "If we printed these things as they stand it would look like a case of the tail wagging the dog." Maxwell began again, "Oh, I didn't expect--" "Oh, yes, you did," said Ricker. "Of course, you felt that the report was at least physically inadequate."