from a thermos bottle and a tin box, and set upon his writing; lunched hastily around the corner, returned with armfuls of newspapers which he skimmed as a preliminary to a second long bout with his pen; allowed himself an hour for dinner, and came back to resume the never-ending task.  As in the days of the “Eban” sketches, now on the press for book publication, it was write, rewrite, and re-rewrite, the typed sheets coming back to Miss Westlake amended, interlined, corrected, but always successively shortened and simplified.  Profitable, indeed, for the solicitous little typist; but she ventured, after a fortnight of it, to remonstrate on the score of ordinary prudence.  Banneker laughed, though he was touched, too, by her interest.

“I’m indestructible,” he assured her.  “But next week I shall run around outside a little.”

“You must,” she insisted.

“Field-work, I believe they call it.  The Elysian Fields of Manhattan Island.  Perhaps you’ll come with me sometimes and see that I attend properly to my recreation.”

Curiosity as well as a mere personal interest prompted her to accept.  She did not understand the purpose of these strange and vivid writings committed to her hands, so different from any of the earlier of Mr. Banneker’s productions; so different, indeed, from anything that she had hitherto seen in any print.  Nor did she derive full enlightenment from her Elysian journeys with the writer.  They seemed to be casual if not aimless.  The pair traveled about on street-cars, L trains, Fifth Avenue buses, dined in queer, crowded restaurants, drank in foreign-appearing beer-halls, went to meetings, to Cooper Union forums, to the Art Gallery, the Aquarium, the Museum of Natural History, to dances in East-Side halls:  and everywhere, by virtue of his easy and graceful good-fellowship, Banneker picked up acquaintances, entered into their discussions, listened to their opinions and solemn dicta, agreeing or controverting with equal good-humor, and all, one might have carelessly supposed, in the idlest spirit of a light-minded Haroun al Raschid.

“What is it all about, if you don’t mind telling?” asked his companion as he bade her good-night early one morning.

“To find what people naturally talk about,” was the ready answer.

“And then?”

“To talk with them about what interests them.  In print.”

“Then it isn’t Elysian-fielding at all.”

“No.  It’s work.  Hard work.”

“And what do you do after it?”

“Oh, sit up and write for a while.”

“You’ll break down.”

“Oh, no!  It’s good for me.”

And, indeed, it was better for him than the alternative of trying to sleep without the anodyne of complete exhaustion.  For again, his hours were haunted by the not-to-be-laid spirit of Io Welland.  As in those earlier days when, with hot eyes and set teeth, he had sent up his nightly prayer for deliverance from the powers of the past—­