Lavender found himself, with Mr.
Crackamup, in the lobby. "It's bewildering," he thought, "how quickly he
settled that. And yet he had such repose. But is there some mistake?"
He was about to ask his companion, but with a distant hiccough the small
man had vanished. Thus deserted, Mr. Lavender was in two minds whether
to ask to be readmitted, when the four gentlemen with notebooks repassed
him in single file into the editor's room.
"My name is Lavender," he said resolutely to the young woman. "Is that
all right?"
"Quite," she answered, without looking up.
Mr. Lavender went out slowly, thinking, "I may perhaps have said more in
that interview than I remember. Next time I really will insist on having
a proof. Or have they taken me for some other public man?" This notion
was so disagreeable, however, that he dismissed it, and passed into the
street.
On Thursday, the day fixed for his fresh tour of public speaking,
he opened the great journal eagerly. Above the third column was the
headline: OUR VITAL DUTY: BY A GREAT PUBLIC MAN. "That must be it," he
thought. The article, which occupied just a column of precious space,
began with an appeal so moving that before he had read twenty lines
Mr.
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