"But we haven't a detective agency," objected Marchmont.
"But we will have before sunset," said the chief. "There's O'Brien—"
"Yes. Chucked from Pinkerton's force for habitual drunkenness," interjected his subordinate.
"Just so," said the editor, "and anxious to get a job in consequence. He'll be only too glad to run the whole show for us. The city shall be watched, and the first time 'The Purple Kangaroo' is used in a suspicious sense we'll arrest the offenders, discover the plot, and the Daily Leader, as the defender of the nation and the people's bulwark, will increase its circulation a hundred thousand copies! It makes me dizzy to think of it! I tell you what it is, Marchmont, that subeditorship is still vacant, and if you put this through, the place is yours."
The reporter grasped his chief's hand.
"That's white of you, boss," he said, "and I'll do it no matter what it costs or who gets hurt in the process."
"Right you are!" cried his employer. "The man who edits this paper has got to hustle. Now don't let the grass grow under your feet, and we'll have a drink to celebrate."
When the chief offers to set up a sub it means business, and Marchmont was elated accordingly.
At the Club the Bishop's son still contemplated the Avenue from the vantage-point of the most comfortable armchair the room possessed. Praise, he reflected, which was not intended for the author's ear was praise indeed. No man could tell to what it might lead. No one indeed, Cecil Banborough least of all, though he was destined to find out before he was many hours older; for down in the editorial sanctum of the Daily Leader O'Brien was being instructed: