"Let's forget all that. The point is I've come back."

"Oh, dear! I do hate not to take you in. But there isn't a spot."

"Who's got my old room?"

"Mr. Hainer."

"Hainer? Let's turn him out."

"I would in a minute," declared the ungrateful landlady to whom Mr.

Hainer had always been a model lodger. "But the law--"

"Oh, I'll fix Hainer if you'll fix the room."

"How?" asked the bewildered Mrs. Brashear.

"The room? Just as it used to be. Bed, table, couple of chairs, bookshelf."

"But Mr. Hainer's things?"

"Store 'em. It'll be for only a month."

Leaving his trunk, Banneker sallied forth in smiling confidence to accost and transfer the unsuspecting occupant of his room. To achieve this, it was necessary only to convince the object of the scheme that the incredible offer was made in good faith; an apartment in the "swell"

Regalton, luxuriously furnished, service and breakfast included, rent free for a whole month. A fairy-tale for the prosaic Hainer to be gloated over for the rest of his life! Very quietly, for this was part of the bargain, the middle-aged accountant moved to his new glories and Banneker took his old quarters. It was all accomplished that evening.

The refurnishing was finished on the following day.

"But what are you doing it for, if I may be so bold, Mr. Banneker?"

asked the landlady.

"Peace, quiet, and work," he answered gayly. "Just to be where nobody can find me, while I do a job."

Here, as in the old, jobless days, Banneker settled down to concentrated and happy toil. Always a creature of Spartan self-discipline in the matter of work, he took on, in this quiet and remote environment, new energies. Miss Westlake, recipient of the output as it came from the hard-driven pen, was secretly disquieted. Could any human being maintain such a pace without collapse? Day after day, the devotee of the third-floor-front rose at seven, breakfasted from a thermos bottle and a tin box, and set upon his writing; lunched hastily around the corner, returned with armfuls of newspapers which he skimmed as a preliminary to a second long bout with his pen; allowed himself an hour for dinner, and came back to resume the never-ending task. As in the days of the "Eban"

sketches, now on the press for book publication, it was write, rewrite, and re-rewrite, the typed sheets coming back to Miss Westlake amended, interlined, corrected, but always successively shortened and simplified.

Profitable, indeed, for the solicitous little typist; but she ventured, after a fortnight of it, to remonstrate on the score of ordinary prudence. Banneker laughed, though he was touched, too, by her interest.

"I'm indestructible," he assured her. "But next week I shall run around outside a little."

"You must," she insisted.

"Field-work, I believe they call it. The Elysian Fields of Manhattan Island. Perhaps you'll come with me sometimes and see that I attend properly to my recreation."

Curiosity as well as a mere personal interest prompted her to accept.

She did not understand the purpose of these strange and vivid writings committed to her hands, so different from any of the earlier of Mr.

Banneker's productions; so different, indeed, from anything that she had hitherto seen in any print. Nor did she derive full enlightenment from her Elysian journeys with the writer. They seemed to be casual if not aimless. The pair traveled about on street-cars, L trains, Fifth Avenue buses, dined in queer, crowded restaurants, drank in foreign-appearing beer-halls, went to meetings, to Cooper Union forums, to the Art Gallery, the Aquarium, the Museum of Natural History, to dances in East-Side halls: and everywhere, by virtue of his easy and graceful good-fellowship, Banneker picked up acquaintances, entered into their discussions, listened to their opinions and solemn dicta, agreeing or controverting with equal good-humor, and all, one might have carelessly supposed, in the idlest spirit of a light-minded Haroun al Raschid.

"What is it all about, if you don't mind telling?" asked his companion as he bade her good-night early one morning.

"To find what people naturally talk about," was the ready answer.

"And then?"

"To talk with them about what interests them. In print."

"Then it isn't Elysian-fielding at all."

"No. It's work. Hard work."

"And what do you do after it?"

"Oh, sit up and write for a while."

"You'll break down."

"Oh, no! It's good for me."

And, indeed, it was better for him than the alternative of trying to sleep without the anodyne of complete exhaustion. For again, his hours were haunted by the not-to-be-laid spirit of Io Welland. As in those earlier days when, with hot eyes and set teeth, he had sent up his nightly prayer for deliverance from the powers of the past--

"Heaven shield and keep us free From the wizard, Memory And his cruel necromancies!"--

she came back to her old sway over his soul, and would not be exorcised.--So he drugged his brain against her with the opiate of weariness.

Three of his four weeks had passed when Banneker began to whistle at his daily stent. Thereafter small boys, grimy with printer's ink, called occasionally, received instructions and departed, and there emanated from his room the clean and bitter smell of paste, and the clip of shears. Despite all these new activities, the supply of manuscript for Miss Westlake's typewriter never failed. One afternoon Banneker knocked at the door, asked her if she thought she could take dictation direct, and on her replying doubtfully that she could try, transferred her and her machine to his den, which was littered with newspapers, proof-sheets, and foolscap. Walking to and fro with a sheet of the latter inscribed with a few notes in his hand, the hermit proceeded to deliver himself to the briskly clicking writing machine.

"Three-em dash," said he at the close. "That seemed to go fairly well."

"Are you training me?" asked Miss Westlake.

"No. I'm training myself. It's easier to write, but it's quicker to talk. Some day I'm going to be really busy"--Miss Westlake gasped--"and time-saving will be important. Shall we try it again to-morrow?"

She nodded. "I could brush up my shorthand and take it quicker."

"Do you know shorthand?" He looked at her contemplatively. "Would you care to take a regular position, paying rather better than this casual work?"

"With you?" asked Miss Westlake in a tone which constituted a sufficient acceptance.

"Yes. Always supposing that I land one myself. I'm in a big gamble, and these," he swept a hand over the littered accumulations, "are my cards.

If they're good enough, I'll win."

"They are good enough," said Miss Westlake with simple faith.

"I'll know to-morrow," replied Banneker.

For a young man, jobless, highly unsettled of prospects, the ratio of whose debts to his assets was inversely to what it should have been, Banneker presented a singularly care-free aspect when, at 11 A.M. of a rainy morning, he called at Mr. Tertius Marrineal's Fifth Avenue house, bringing with him a suitcase heavily packed. Mr. Marrineal's personal Jap took over the burden and conducted it and its owner to a small rear room at the top of the house. Banneker apprehended at the first glance that this was a room for work. Mr. Marrineal, rising from behind a broad, glass-topped table with his accustomed amiable smile, also looked workmanlike.

"You have decided to come with us, I hope," said he pleasantly enough, yet with a casual politeness which might have been meant to suggest a measure of indifference. Banneker at once caught the note of bargaining.

"If you think my ideas are worth my price," he replied.

"Let's have the ideas."