The stranger produced and handed to the editor a pink paper covered with faint black writing.
“You will see at the foot this—Mr. Vellacott's reason for not wiring to you direct. He wished my friend to be here before the printers got to work this morning; but owing to this unfortunate illness—”
“I am afraid you are too late, sir,” interrupted Mr. Bodery briskly. “The press is at work—”
“My friend instructed me,” interposed the stranger in his turn, “to make you rather a difficult proposition. If a thousand pounds will compensate for the loss incurred by the delay of issue, and defray the expense of paper spoilt—I—I have that amount with me.”
Mr. Bodery did not display the least sign of surprise, merely shaking his head with a quiet smile. Mr. Morgan, however, laid aside his pencil, and placed his elbow upon the proof-sheets before him.
The stranger then stepped forward with a sudden change of manner.
“Mr. Bodery,” he said, in a low, concentrated voice, “I will give you five hundred pounds for a proof copy of Mr. Vellacott's article.”
A dead silence of some moments' duration followed this remark. Mr. Morgan raised his head and looked across the table at his chief. The editor made an almost imperceptible motion with his eyebrows in the direction of the door.
Then Mr. Morgan rose somewhat heavily from his chair, with a hand upon either arm, after the manner of a man who is beginning to put on weight rapidly. He went to the door, opened it, and, turning towards the stranger, said urbanely:
“Sir—the door!”