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“Young lady from the Epoch waiting to see you, sir,” said the servant at Carmichael’s lodgings, encountering him in the hallway of that domicile, as he let himself in by a pass-key late one afternoon after a round of calls.

Carmichael was the picture of self-satisfied complacency. In attire, in bearing, he knew himself to be above criticism by the well informed; and yet his vanity did not disdain the looks of heartfelt admiration cast upon him by the hand-maidens to whom his landlady paid small wages for the promiscuous service of her house.

“Another reporter!” he exclaimed, petulantly. “Did I not tell you never to let them wait for me?”

“She’s in there, sir, not in your sittin’-room,” went on the girl, pointing to the closed door of the boarding-house parlor. “She said it was very important, Mr. Carmichael.”

Smiling at the awe-struck expression of the domestic, whose class can never rid itself of respect for private individuals “wanted” by the press, he opened the door of a long, narrow apartment with abundant cheap draperies, spindle-work furniture, and artificial palms, to find himself confronted by an unwelcome apparition.