To respect for this habitude, Reginald Currier, known to mortals as Bim, Guardian of the Sacred Gates, had been rigorously educated.  But Bim had a creed of his own which mollified the rigidity of specific standards, and one tenet thereof was the apothegm, “Once a ‘Clarion’ man, always a ‘Clarion’ man,” the same applying to women.  Therefore, when Milly Neal appeared at the gate at 9.05 in the evening, the Cerberus greeted her professionally with a “How goes it, Miss Cutie?” and passed her in without question.  She went straight to the inner office.

“Hoong!” grunted McGuire Ellis, rubbing his eyes in a desperate endeavor to disentangle dreams from actualities.  “What are you doing here?”

“I want to see Mr. Surtaine.”

Something in the girl’s aspect put Ellis on his guard.  “What do you want to see him about?” he asked.

“I don’t see any Examination Bureau license pinned to you, Ellis,” she retorted hardily.

“The Boss is out.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“All right,” said McGuire Ellis equably.  “I’m a liar.”

“Then you’re the proper man for a ‘Clarion’ job,” came the savage retort.

“Come off, Kitty.  Don’t be young!”

“I want to see Hal Surtaine,” she said with sullen insistence.

Shaking himself out of his chair, the associate editor started across the room to the telephone at Hal’s desk, but halted sharply in front of the girl.

“You’ve been drinking,” he said.

“What’s it to you if I have?”

The man’s hand fell on her shoulder.  There was no familiarity in the act; only comradeship.  Comradeship in the voice, also, and concern, as he said, “Cut it, Neal, cut it.  There’s nothing in it.  You’re too good stuff to throw yourself away on that.”

“Don’t you worry about me.”  She shook off his hand, and seated herself.

“Still working at the Certina joint?”

“No.  I’m not working.”

“See here, Neal:  what made you quit us?”

The girl withheld speech back of tight-pressed lips.

“Oh, well, never mind that.  The point is, we miss you.  We miss the ‘Cutie’ column.  It was good stuff.  We want you back.”

Still silence.

“And I guess you miss us.  You liked the job, didn’t you?”

The girl gazed past him with ashen eyes.  “Oh, my God!” she said under her breath.

“Your job back and no questions asked,” pursued Ellis, with an outer cheerfulness which cost him no small effort in the face of his growing conviction of some tragic issue pending.

Now she looked directly at him, and there was a flicker of flame in her regard.

“Do you know what a Hardscrabbler is, Ellis?” she asked.

The other rubbed his head in puzzlement.  “I don’t believe I do,” he confessed.

“Then you won’t understand when I tell you that I’m one and that I’d see your ‘Clarion’ blazing in hell before I’d take another cent of your money.”  The fire died from her face, and in her former tone of dulled stolidity she repeated, “I want to see Mr. Surtaine.”