Dog-tired and happier than any poor dog of a [325] newspaper man has a right to be, Singlebury went to his room and to bed. And when finally he fell asleep he dreamed the second chapter of that orange-blossomy dream of his.
Being left to himself, Mr. Foxman read Singlebury’s copy through page by page, changing words here and there, but on the whole enormously pleased with it. Then he touched a buzzer button under his desk, being minded to call into conference the chief editorial writer and the news editor before he put the narrative into type. Now it happened that at this precise moment Mr. Foxman’s own special boy had left his post just outside Mr. Foxman’s door to skylark with a couple of ordinary copy boys in the corridor between the city room and the Sunday room, and so he didn’t answer the summons immediately. The fact was, he didn’t hear the bell until Mr. Foxman impatiently rang a second and a third time. Then he came running, making up a suitable excuse to explain his tardiness as he came. And during that half minute of delay there leaped out of nowhere into Mr. Foxman’s brain an idea—an idea, horned, hoofed and hairy—which was to alter the current of his own life and, directly or indirectly, the lives of scores of others.
It would seem I was a trifle premature, back yonder near the beginning of this chapter, when I used the line: Six-thirty-four—enter the villain.
[326]
Because, as I now realise, the villain didn’t enter then. The villain did not enter until this moment, more than forty-eight hours later, entering not in the guise of a human being but in the shape of this tufted, woolly demon of a notion which took such sudden lodgment in Mr. Foxman’s mind. Really, I suppose we should blame the office boy. His being late may have been responsible for the whole thing.
He poked a tow head in at the door, ready to take a scolding.
“D’yer ring, sir?” he inquired meekly.
“Yes, three times,” said Mr. Foxman. “Where have you been?”
“Right here, sir. Somethin’ you wanted, sir?”
“No; I’ve changed my mind. Get out!”
Pleased and surprised to have escaped, the towhead withdrew. Very deliberately Mr. Foxman lit a cigar, leaned back in his chair, and for a period took mental accounting of his past, his present and his future; and all the while he did this a decision was being forged for him, by that busy devilish little tempter, into shape and point and permanency.