By which he purposed to convey to the artist the fact that his presence in Boston was neither desirable nor advisable. As he was about to affix his signature, a knock brought him to the door of his hotel room. “Letter for you,” announced the messenger boy. Kent signed the book and received a broad thin envelope sealed in golden hued wax with the impress of a star, and addressed in typewriting to his own name. “Confound all fools who sign their letters on the outside!” said Kent, scowling at the seal. “What has that planetary lunatic got to say that won’t keep?” What Preston Jax had to say was, first, in the form of a very brief note; secondly, in the shape of a formidable-looking document. The note began “Esteemed sir,” concluded “Yours remorsefully,” and set forth, in somewhat exotic language, that the writer, fearing a lapse of courage that might confuse his narrative when he should come to give it, had “taken pen in hand” to commit it to writing, and would the recipient “kindly pardon haste?” Therewith, twenty-one typed pages. “Haste!” cried Chester Kent grievously. “Why, he’s written me the story of his life!” Indeed, at a cursory glance, it appeared so. The initial paragraph opened, “I was born of poor but honest parents.” Chester Kent groaned. A little farther down the page the phrase, “Oh, that those innocent days of my happy childhood might return!” rose and smote him in the eyes. Chester Kent snorted. A desperate leap landed him in the midst of page five, where he encountered this gem, “With these fateful words the kind old minister laid a faltering hand upon my head. But enough!” “Quite enough!” agreed Chester Kent, and kicked the Star-master’s document into a corner. It fell in a crumpled heap with one sheet, curving in upward protuberance, conspicuous to the eye. On this sheet there was handwriting, and the handwriting was the same as that of the note Marjorie Blair had identified. Kent retrieved the paper, laid it on his desk, selected a likely spot for one more plunge, and dived into the turbid flood of words. And behold! as he turned, so to speak, the corner of the narrative, the current became suddenly clear. The muddled eloquence fell away; and the style crystallized into the tense quick testimony of the prime actor in a drama, intensely and shudderingly felt.