§ 1
It was some three months after the publishing house had been established in its new offices, that Jeannette had the card of Martin Devlin brought to her. It was embossed and heavily engraved, with a small outline of the earth’s two hemispheres in one corner and bisecting these, in tiny capitals, the words: THE GIBBS ENGRAVING COMPANY. Mr. Corey was out; Jeannette told the boy to inform the caller. In a minute or two the messenger returned to say that the gentleman would like to speak to Mr. Corey’s secretary, but Jeannette had no time to waste on solicitors of engraving work, and sent word that she was occupied. The boy reappeared presently with another of Mr. Devlin’s cards, on the back of which was pencilled:
“Dear Miss Sturgis,—I’d be grateful for two minutes’ interview. Have a message from an old friend of yours.
M. Devlin.”
Jeannette frowned in distaste, and looked up at the boy, annoyed. She was extremely busy, typing a speech for Mr. Corey which he was to read that night at a Publishers’ Banquet at the Waldorf. It was twenty minutes past four; she expected him to return at any minute.
“Tell the gentleman to come again, will you, Jimmy? I’m really too busy to see him to-day.”
The boy went out and she returned to her work, her fingers flying.
“The responsibility of molding public opinion,” went her notes, “rests perhaps with our press, but to whom do the discriminating readers of the nation in confidence turn for the formation of their taste in literature, their acquaintance with the Arts, the dissemination of those inspiring idealistic thoughts and precepts of the fathers of our great——”
She estimated there were another three pages of it.
The door of her office opened and a young man of square build, with broad shoulders, and a grin on his face, filled the aperture.