And yet, when they stood at last face-to-face him, he bore a most disappointing air of every-day respectability.  He was a tall, thin young man, with light hair and mustache and large blue eyes.  His back was towards the window, so that his face was in the shadow, and he did not rise as they entered.  The room in which he sat was a prettily furnished one, opening into another tiny room, which, from the number of books in it, might have been called a library.  The rooms had a well-to-do, even prosperous, air, but they did not show any evidences of a pronounced taste on the part of their owner, either in the way in which they were furnished or in the decorations of the walls.  A little girl of about seven or eight years of age, who was standing between her father’s knees, with a hand on each, and with her head thrown back on his shoulder, looked up at the two visitors with evident interest, and smiled brightly.

“Mr. Aram?” asked the editor, tentatively.

The young man nodded, and the two visitors seated themselves.

“I wish to talk to you on a matter of private business,” the editor began.  “Wouldn’t it be better to send the little girl away?”

The child shook her head violently at this, and crowded up closely to her father; but he held her away from him gently, and told her to “run and play with Annie.”

She passed the two visitors, with her head held scornfully in air, and left the men together.  Mr. Aram seemed to have a most passive and incurious disposition.  He could have no idea as to who his anonymous visitors might be, nor did he show any desire to know.

“I am the editor of ——­,” the editor began.  “My friend also writes for that periodical.  I have received several poems from you lately, Mr. Aram, and one in particular which we all liked very much.  It was called ‘Bohemia.’  But it is so like one that has appeared under the same title in the ‘——­ Magazine’ that I thought I would see you about it, and ask you if you could explain the similarity.  You see,” he went on, “it would be less embarrassing if you would do so now than later, when the poem has been published and when people might possibly accuse you of plagiarism.”  The editor smiled encouragingly and waited.

Mr. Aram crossed one leg over the other and folded his hands in his lap.  He exhibited no interest, and looked drowsily at the editor.  When he spoke it was in a tone of unstudied indifference.  “I never wrote a poem called ‘Bohemia,’” he said, slowly; “at least, if I did I don’t remember it.”

The editor had not expected a flat denial, and it irritated him, for he recognized it to be the safest course the man could pursue, if he kept to it.  “But you don’t mean to say,” he protested, smiling, “that you can write so excellent a poem as ‘Bohemia’ and then forget having done so?”

“I might,” said Mr. Aram, unresentfully, and with little interest.  “I scribble a good deal.”