"Oh,
Tallerman," cried the Sunday editor, "here's this Arctic man
come to arrange about his illustration. I wish you'd go and talk
it over with him." By chance he picked up the scrap of paper
with its cryptic word. " Oh," he said, scowling at the office boy.
"Pity you can't remember that fellow. If you can't remember
faces any better than that you should be a detective. Get out
now and tell him to go to the devil." The wilted slave turned at
once, but Coleman hailed him. " Hold on. Come to think of it, I
will see this idiot. Send him in," he commanded, grimly.
Coleman lapsed into a dream over the sheet of grey note
paper. Presently, a middle-aged man, a palpable German, came
hesitatingly into the room and bunted among the desks as
unmanageably as a tempest-tossed scow. Finally he was
impatiently towed in the right direction. He came and stood at
Coleman's elbow and waited nervously for the engrossed man
to raise his eyes. It was plain that this interview meant
important things to him. Somehow on his commonplace
countenance was to be found the expression of a dreamer, a
fashioner of great and absurd projects, a fine, tender fool. He
cast hopeful and reverent glances at the man who was deeply
contemplative of the grey note. He evidently believed himself
on the threshold of a triumph of some kind, and he awaited
his fruition with a joy that was only made sharper by
the usual human suspicion of coming events.
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