So far, so good. But the supreme test remained. He plunged out into the silent corridor, hesitated, stood wrestling with the devils within him, conquered them and white as all the ghosts tapped at Doctor Wilde's door, opened it a crack, stuck in his head, and said: “How much did you say it was to be, Doctor?” The Walrus compressed his lips, and then drew a deep breath that was not unlike a sigh. “The figure I mentioned,” he replied, “was sixty dollars a week. If that is satisfactory to you.” Hy considered this. “On the whole,” he said finally, “considering everything, I will agree to that.” At ten minutes past midnight Hy let himself into the rooms. One gas jet was burning dimly in the studio. As he stood on the threshold he could just make out the long figure of the Worm half reclining in the Morris chair by a wide-open window, attired in the striped pajamas of the morning. From one elevated foot dangled a slipper of Chinese straw. He was smoking his old brier. “Hello!” said Hy cheerfully. Silence. Then, “Hello!” replied the Worm. Hy tossed his hat on the couch-bed of the absent Peter, then came and stood by the open window, thrust hands deep into trousers packets, sniffed the mild evening air, gazed benevolently on the trees, lights and little moving figures of the Square. Then he lit a cigarette. “Great night, my son!” said he. The Worm lowered his pipe, looked up with sudden sharp interest, studied the gay young person standing so buoyantly there before him; then replaced the pipe and smoked on in silence. “Oh, come!” cried Hy, after a bit. “Buck up! Be a live young newspaper man!” “I'm not a newspaper man,'” replied the Worm. “You're not a---you were this afternoon.” “True.” “Say, my son, what were you around for today?” The pipe came down again. “You mean to say you don't know?” “Not a thing. Except that the place went absolutely on the fritz. I thought I had 'em.” “I don't wonder,” muttered Henry Bates. “And the Walrus raised me fifteen bucks per. Just like that!” “He raised you?” “Yes, my child.” Hy came around, sat on the desk, dangled his legs. “Then,” observed the Worm, “he certainly thinks you know.” “Elucidate! Elucidate!” The Worm knocked the ashes from his pipe; turned the warm bowl around and around in his hand. “Our paper--I should say _The Courier_--. has a story on Doctor Wilde--a charge that he has misappropriated missionary funds. They sent me up to-day to ask if he would consent to an accounting.” Hy whistled. “The amount is put roughly at a million dollars. I didn't care much about the assignment.” “I should think not.” “I'm fond of Sue. But it was my job. When I told him what I was there for, he ran me out of his office, locked the door and shouted through the transom that he had a bottle of poison in his desk and would take it if I wouldn't agree to suppress the story. As if he'd planned exactly that scene for years.” “Aha,” cried Hy--“melodrama.” “Precisely. Melodrama. It was unpleasant.”