After a few minutes, the persistent man who had insisted upon seeing the editor came through the general waiting-room, the secretary, or clerk, or whoever he was, following him.
“Has your name been sent in, madam?” the young man asked Miss Baxter, as she rose. “I think not,” answered the girl. “Would you take my card to Mr. Hardwick, and tell him I will detain him but a few moments?”
In a short time the secretary reappeared, and held the door open for her.
CHAPTER II. JENNIE HAS IMPORTANT CONFERENCES WITH TWO IMPORTANT EDITORS.
Mr. Hardwick was a determined-looking young man of about thirty-five, with a bullet head and closely-cropped black hair. He looked like a stubborn, strong-willed person, and Miss Baxter’s summing up of him was that he had not the appearance of one who could be coaxed or driven into doing anything he did not wish to do. He held her card between his fingers, and glanced from it to her, then down to the card again.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Hardwick,” began Miss Baxter. “I don’t know that you have seen any of my work, but I have written a good deal for some of the evening papers and for several of the magazines.”
“Yes,” said Hardwick, who was standing up preparatory to leaving his office, and who had not asked the young woman to sit down; “your name is familiar to me. You wrote, some months since, an account of a personal visit to the German Emperor; I forget now where it appeared.”
“Oh, yes,” said Miss Baxter; “that was written for the Summer Magazine, and was illustrated by photographs.”
“It struck me,” continued Hardwick, without looking at her, “that it was an article written by a person who had never seen the German Emperor, but who had collected and assimilated material from whatever source presented itself.”