When he rose to go—it was in the exact moment when the patch of sunlight touched the wainscot—Vickars had offered him some practical advice.
"I wish I could help you," he said. "Let me see, it's New York you're going to, isn't it?"
"Yes—New York."
"Well, there's a man there I know slightly—I met him once over a negotiation for book rights in the States. He had an odd name—probably that's why I remember him—Wilbur Meredith Legion, and he seemed to be a decent fellow. It won't do you any harm to have an introduction to him."
From a pigeon-hole in his desk Vickars produced a card: "Mr. Wilbur Meredith Legion, Vermont Building, Broadway, New York. Literary and Press Agent."
"You'll find him interesting, at all events," said Vickars, "and he may be able to put you in the way of using your pen."
From Lonsdale Road Arthur had gone to Mrs. Bundy's. That redoubtable woman at once rose to the occasion, and indulged herself in a flight of prophecy which would have done credit to the wildest programmes of Mr. Bundy.
"You'll make your fortune before you're thirty," she exclaimed. "Think of Carnegie."
And thereupon she poured forth a stream of exhilarating and incorrect information, which sounded strangely like excerpts from Bundy's prospectuses, so that it seemed as though a conjurer flung a dozen golden balls of sudden wealth into the air, and kept them flashing and gyrating for some seconds with amazing ingenuity.
"Stop!—stop!" said Arthur, laughing.