Ignorant of the publication world outside of Park Row, Banneker did not recognize a name, unknown to the public, which in the inner literary world connoted all that was finest, most perceptive, most discriminating and helpful in selective criticism. Miss Thornborough had been the first to see and foster half of the glimmering and feeble radiances which had later grown to be the manifest lights of the magazine and book world, thanks largely to her aid and encouragement. The next name mentioned by Miss Westlake was well enough known to Banneker, however. The critic, it appears, had, with her own hands, borne the anonymous, typed copies to the editorial sanctum of the foremost of monthlies, and, claiming a prerogative, refused to move aside from the pathway of orderly business until the Great Gaines himself, editor and autocrat of the publication, had read at least one of them. So the Great Gaines indulged Miss Thornborough by reading one. He then indulged himself by reading three more.

"Your goose," he pronounced, "is not fledged; but there may be a fringe of swan feathers. Bring him to see me."

"I haven't the faintest idea of who, what, or where he is," answered the insistent critic.

"Then hire a detective at our expense," smiled the editor. "And, please, as you go, can't you lure away with you Mr. Harvey Wheelwright, our most popular novelist, now in the reception-room wishing us to publish his latest enormity? Us!" concluded the Great Gaines sufficiently.

Having related the episode to its subject, Miss Westlake said diffidently: "Do you think it was inexcusably impertinent of me?"

"No. I think it was very kind."

"Then you'll go to see Mr. Gaines?"

"One of these days. When I get out of this present scrape. And I hope you'll keep on copying my Sunday stuff after I leave. Nobody else would be so patient with my dreadful handwriting."

She gave him a glance and a little flush of thankfulness. Matters had begun to improve with Miss Westlake. But it was due to Banneker that she had won through her time of desperation. Now, through his suggestion, she was writing successfully, quarter and half column "general interest"

articles for the Woman's Page of the Sunday Ledger. If she could in turn help Banneker to recognition, part of her debt would be paid. As for him, he was interested in, but not greatly expectant of, the Gaines invitation. Still, if he were cast adrift from The Ledger because of activity in the coming police inquiry, there was a possible port in the magazine world.

Meantime there pressed the question of a home. Cressey ought to afford help on that. He called the gilded youth on the telephone.

"Hello, old fire-eater!" cried Cressey. "Some little hero, aren't you!

Bully work, my boy. I'm proud to know you.... What; quarters? Easiest thing you know. I've got the very thing--just like a real-estate agent.

Let's see; this is your Monday at Sherry's, isn't it? All right. I'll meet you there."

Providentially, as it might appear, a friend of Cressey's, having secured a diplomatic appointment, was giving up his bachelor apartment in the select and central Regalton.

"Cheap as dirt," said the enthusiastic Cressey, beaming at Banneker over his cocktail that evening. "Two rooms and bath; fully furnished, and you can get it for eighteen hundred a year."

"Quite a raise from the five dollars a week I've been paying," smiled Banneker.

"Pshaw! You've got to live up to your new reputation. You're somebody, now, Banneker. All New York is talking about you. Why, I'm afraid to say I know you for fear they'll think I'm bragging."

"All of which doesn't increase my income," pointed out the other.

"It will. Just wait. One way or another you'll capitalize that reputation. That's the way New York is."

"That isn't the way _I_ am, however. I'll capitalize my brains and ability, if I've got 'em; not my gun-play."

"Your gun-play will advertise your brains and ability, then," retorted Cressey. "Nobody expects you to make a princely income shooting up toughs on the water-front. But your having done it will put you in the lime-light where people will notice you. And being noticed is the beginning of success in this-man's-town. I'm not sure it isn't the end, too. Just see how the head waiter fell all over himself when you came in. I expect he's telling that bunch at the long table yonder who you are now."

"Let him," returned Banneker comfortably, his long-bred habit of un-self-consciousness standing him in good stead. "They'll all forget it soon enough."

As he glanced over at the group around the table, the man who was apparently acting as host caught his eye and nodded in friendly fashion.

"Oh, you know Marrineal, do you?" asked Cressey in surprise.

"I've seen him, but I've never spoken to him. He dines sometimes in a queer little restaurant way downtown, just off the Swamp. Who is he, anyway?"

"Puzzle. Nobody in the clubs knows him. He's a spender. Bit of a rounder, too, I expect. Plays the Street, and beats it, too."

"Who's the little beauty next him?"

"You a rising light of Park Row, and not know Betty Raleigh? She killed 'em dead in London in romantic comedy and now she's come back here to repeat."

"Oh, yes. Opening to-night, isn't she? I've got a seat." He looked over at Marrineal, who was apparently protesting against his neighbor's reversed wine-glass. "So that's Mr. Marrineal's little style of game, is it?" He spoke crudely, for the apparition of the girl was quite touching in its youth, and delight, and candor of expression, whereas he had read into Marrineal's long, handsome, and blandly mature face a touch of the satyr. He resented the association.

"No; it isn't," replied Cressey promptly. "If it is, he's in the wrong pew. Miss Raleigh is straight as they make 'em, from all I hear."

"She looks it," admitted Banneker.

"At that, she's in a rather sporty lot. Do you know that chap three seats to her left?"

Banneker considered the diner, a round-faced, high-colored, youthful man of perhaps thirty-five, with a roving and merry eye. "No," he answered.

"I never saw him before."

"That's Del Eyre," remarked Cressey casually, and appearing not to look at Banneker.

"A friend of yours?" The indifference of the tone indicated to his companion either that Banneker did not identify Delavan Eyre by his marriage, or that he maintained extraordinary control over himself, or that the queer, romantic stories of Io Welland's "passion in the desert"

were gross exaggerations. Cressey inclined to the latter belief.

"Not specially," he answered the question. "He belongs to a couple of my clubs. Everybody likes Del; even Mrs. Del. But his pace is too swift for me. Just at present he is furnishing transportation, sixty horse-power, for Tarantina, the dancer who is featured in Betty Raleigh's show."

"Is she over there with them?"

"Oh, no. She wouldn't be. It isn't as sporty as all that." He rose to shake hands with a short, angular young man, dressed to a perfection as accurate as Banneker's own, and excelling him in one distinctive touch, a coat-flower of gold-and-white such as no other in New York could wear, since only in one conservatory was that special orchid successfully grown. By it Banneker recognized Poultney Masters, Jr., the son and heir of the tyrannous old financier who had for years bullied and browbeaten New York to his wayward old heart's content. In his son there was nothing of the bully, but through the amiability of manner Banneker could feel a quiet force. Cressey introduced them.

"We're just having coffee," said Banneker. "Will you join us?"

"Thank you; I must go back to my party. I came over to express my personal obligation to you for cleaning out that gang of wharf-rats. My boat anchors off there. I hope to see you aboard her sometime."

"You owe me no thanks," returned Banneker good-humoredly. "What I did was to save my own precious skin."

"The effect was the same. After this the rats will suspect every man of being a Banneker in disguise, and we shall have no more trouble."

"You see!" remarked Cressey triumphantly as Masters went away. "I told you you'd arrived."

"Do you count a word of ordinary courtesy as so much?" inquired Banneker, surprised and amused.

"From Junior? I certainly do. No Masters ever does anything without having figured out its exact meaning in advance."

"And what does this mean?" asked the other, still unimpressed.

"For one thing, that the Masters influence will be back of you, if the police try to put anything over. For another, that you've got the broadest door to society open to you, if Junior follows up his hint about the yacht."

"I haven't the time," returned Banneker with honest indifference. He sipped his coffee thoughtfully. "Cressey," he said, "if I had a newspaper of my own in New York, do you know what I'd do with it?"

"Make money."

"I hope so. But whether I did or not, I'd set out to puncture that bubble of the Masters power and supremacy. It isn't right for any man to have that power just through money. It isn't American."