Meanwhile the three reporters had drawn near. Light-hearted and irresponsible souls, unoppressed by the embittered suspicion of their superiors, they nosed the floating aroma with candid hilarity.
"The breath of Eden!" said one.
"It's a warm evening," remarked another, with seeming irrelevance.
The face of Virgil Quimbleton, the man in gray, relaxed again at these marks of honest appreciation. He waved an encouraging arm over the crystals. "With the compliments of the Corporation," he repeated.
Bleak and the city editor looked again at the card, and at each other. They scanned the face of their mysterious benefactor. Bleak's hand went out to the nearest glass. He raised it to his lips. An almost-forgotten formula recurred to him. "Down the rat-hole!" he cried, and tilted his arm. The others followed suit, and the associate director watched them with a glow of perfect altruism.
The glasses were still in air when the cartoonist emerged from his room. "Holy cat!" he cried in amazement. "What's going on?" He seized one of the empty vessels and sniffed it.
"Treason!" he exclaimed. "Who's been robbing the mint?"
"Maybe you can have one too," said Bleak, and turned to where Quimbleton had been standing. But the mysterious visitor had leff the room.
"You're too late, Bill," said the city editor genially. "There was a kind of Messiah here, but he's gone. Tough luck."
"Say, boss," suggested one of the reporters. "There's a story in this. May I interview that guy?"