His experiences during the next fortnight were not calculated to reassure him. During that period he found it necessary to stay late at the office several times, and he felt a growing dislike to doing so. He was tempted to keep his manager back on some excuse, but he was a considerate employer who realised what staying late means for the inhabitants of the outer suburbs. The reason for this lively distaste was something which after dark kept visiting the corners of his eyes. He could never see it clearly; it was always on the margin of vision, but it was uncomfortably suggestive of a small, dark man. He found himself looking up quickly to try to catch it when he should have been concentrating on agreements and estimates, but it was always just too quick for him. He stood it as long as he could, and then went to see a famous nerve specialist who had written a treatise on Abnormal Psychology which Mr. Cheltenham had published. The latter described his solitary symptom and was subjected to a rigorous examination. “Well,” said the specialist, when he had finished, “all I can say for a confirmed celibate and ‘sedentary brain worker’ you are disgustingly fit physically, and, I should judge, mentally. If you see a small dark man out of the corner of your eye you can take it from me he’s there. But it is a curious story. Tell me frankly, do you know any possible explanation?” The publisher received the verdict with mixed feelings, and he paused before replying. To say that the appearance of this phenomenon coincided with his acceptance of a book of poems seemed merely to darken counsel, so he answered--not quite frankly--that he had no such explanation to offer. “Then,” said the doctor, “let me know how things turn out, for honestly I’m interested and curious--and don’t stay late at the office.” Still a victim of mixed feelings, Mr. Cheltenham found his zeal for Mr. Kato and his work steadily diminishing. A genuine lover of good books and a sincere and single-minded person, he hated to feel this irrational repulsion for what was after all indisputably a work of genius, and, from a publisher’s point of view, the book of a lifetime. The best thing to do was to hurry the book out. It was occupying too much of his time and his thoughts. That reminded him the proofs were late. He rang up the printer, whose representative came round to see him. “Proofs to-morrow, for certain, sir. You’d have had them before, but--well, there’s been a sort of a little trouble,” and he gave Mr. Cheltenham a funny, deprecating, dubious glance. “What sort of trouble--machine trouble?” asked the publisher. “It sounds a bit of a yarn,” replied the printer, “and it’s only what I’ve been told, but the men in the setting room, who’ve been working overtime, say they keep seeing a little dark chap--well, they don’t exactly see him, but they know he’s there--it fusses them.” “Do you mean an actual person?” asked Mr. Cheltenham perfunctorily.