“How is the paper going?” she inquired, taking the chair which he pulled out for her.

“Completely to the dogs,” said Hal.

“No!  Why I thought—­”

“You haven’t given any advice to the editor for six whole days,” he complained.  “How can you expect an institution to run, bereft of its presiding genius?  Is it your notion of a fair partnership to stay away and let your fellow toilers wither on the bough?  I only wonder that the presses haven’t stopped.”

“Would this help at all?” The visitor produced from her shopping-bag the written announcement of the Recreation Club play.

“Undoubtedly it will save the day.  Lost Atlantis will thrill to hear, and deep-sea cables bear the good news to unborn generations.  What is it?”

She frowned upon his levity.  “It is an interesting item, a very interesting item of news,” she said impressively.

“Bring one in every day,” he directed:  “in person.  We can’t trust the mails in matters of such vital import.”  And scrawling across the copy a single hasty word in pencil, he thrust it into a wire box.

“What’s that you’ve written on it?”

“The mystic word ‘Must.’”

“Does it mean that it must be printed?”

“Precisely, O Fountain of Intuition.  It is one of the proud privileges which an editor-in-chief has.  Otherwise he does exactly what the city desk or the advertising manager or the head proof-reader or the fourth assistant office boy tells him.  That’s because he’s new to his job and everybody in the place knows it.”

“Yet I don’t think it would be easy for any one to make you do a thing you really didn’t want to do,” she observed, regarding him thoughtfully.

“When you lift your eyebrows like that—­”

“I thought you weren’t to make pretty speeches to me in business hours,” she reproached him.

“Such a stern and rock-bound partner!  Very well.  How does the paper suit your tastes?”

“You’ve got an awfully funny society column.”

“We strive to amuse.  But I thought only people outside of society ever read society columns—­except to see if their names were there.”

“I read all the paper,” she answered severely.  “And I’d like to know who Mrs. Wolf Tone Maher is.”

“Ring up ‘Information,’” he suggested.

“Don’t be flippant.  Also Mr. and Mrs. B. Kirschofer, and Miss Amelia Sproule.  All of which give teas in the society columns of the ‘Clarion.’ Or dances. Or dinners.  And I notice they’re always sandwiched in between the Willards or the Vanes or the Ellisons or the Pierces, or some of our own crowd.  I’m curious.”

“So am I. Let’s ask Wayne.”

Accordingly the city editor was summoned and duly presented to Miss Elliot.  But when she put the question to him, he looked uncomfortable.  Like a good city editor, however, he defended his subordinate.