Within a month's time from this time, Mayor McGlynn's prophecy was to come true. On a morning in the early part of the summer 01 Olcott sat behind his desk in his office adjoining the city room on the second floor of the _News-Ledger_ building, when his office boy announced a gentleman calling to see Mr. Olcott personally. “See who it is, will you, please, Morgan?” said Olcott to his assistant. Morgan had arrived less than a week before, having been sent on by the syndicate which owned a chain of papers, the _News-Ledger included_, to serve under the new managing editor. The syndicate had a cheery little way of shuffling the cards at frequent intervals and dealing out fresh executives for the six or eight dailies under its control and ownership. “I'm busy as the dickens,” added Olcott as Morgan got up to obey; “so if it's a pest that's outside, give him the soft answer and steer him off!” In a minute Morgan was back with a cryptic grin on his face. “You'd better see him--he's worth seeing, all right,” said Morgan. “Who is it?” asked Olcott. “It's somebody right out of a book,” answered Morgan; “somebody giving the name of Something Something Van Nicht. I didn't catch all the first name--I was too busy sizing up its proprietor. Says he must see you privately and in person. I gather from his manner that if you don't see him this paper will never be quite the same again. And honestly, Olcott, he's worth seeing.” “I think I know who it is,” said Olcott, “and I'll see him. Boy, show the gentleman in!” “I'll go myself,” said Morgan. “This is a thing that ought to be done in style.” Olcott reared back in his chair, waiting. The door opened and Morgan's voice was heard making formal and sonorous announcement: “Mr. Van Nicht.” And Olcott, looking over his desk top, saw, framed in the doorway, a figure at once picturesque and pitiable. The first thing, almost, to catch his eye was a broad black stock collar--the first stock collar Olcott had ever seen worn by a man in daytime. Above it was a long, close-shaven, old face, with a bloodless and unwholesome pallor to it, framed in long, white hair, and surmounted by a broad-brimmed, tall-crowned soft hat which had once been black and now was gangrenous with age. Below it a pair of sloping shoulders merging into a thin, meagre body tightly cased in a rusty frock coat, and below the coat skirts in turn a pair of amazingly thin and rickety legs, ending in slender, well-polish-ed boots with high heels. In an instantaneous appraisal of the queer figure Olcott comprehended these details and, in that same flicker of time, noted that the triangle of limp linen showing in the V of the close-buttoned lapels had a fragile, yellowish look like old ivory, that all the outer garments were threadbare and shiny in the seams, and that the stock collar was decayed to a greenish tinge along its edges. Although the weather was warm, the stranger wore a pair of grey cotton gloves.