A Scrap of Paper

But Chillingworth, the city editor, was an italicized form of Chillingworth, the guest. He waved both arms at the foreman who ventured to tell him of a head that had one letter too many, and he frowned a greeting at St. George.

"Get right out on the Boris story," he said. "I depend on you. The chief is interested in this too--telephoned to know whom I had on it."

St. George knew perfectly that "the chief" was playing golf at Lenox and no doubt had read no more than the head-lines of the Holland story, for he was a close friend of the bishop's, and St. George knew his ways; but Chillingworth's methods always told, and St. George turned away with all the old glow of his first assignment.

St. George, calling up the Bitley Reformatory, knew that the Chances and the Fates were all allied against his seeing the mulatto woman; but he had learned that it is the one unexpected Fate and the one apostate Chance who open great good luck of any sort. So, though the journey to Westchester County was almost certain to result in refusal, he meant to be confronted by that certainty before he assumed it. To the warden on the wire St. George put his inquiry.

"What are your visitors' days up there, Mr. Jeffrey?"

"Thursdays," came the reply, and the warden's voice suggested handcuffs by way of hospitality.

"This is St. George of the Sentinel. I want very much to see one of your people--a mulatto woman. Can you fix it for me?"