Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/255

Rh "outsiders"—whom he called "barbers " in his more contemptuous moods. The first were the writers, the second the written. The first lived on the second, despised them, exposed them, flattered them, used them, bled them, and made fools of them. There was some necessary fraternizing between the two, but no possibility of sincere friendship; and even in his most companionable moments Colburn did not forget that the outsider with whom he drank was a possible source of a news story—and watched for it.

The man Fisher whom he had just left was an outsider of a particularly odious type: he was the sort of barber who thinks he can buy a newspaper man, hoodwink him, and use him for "outside" purposes. But the man to whom Colburn entered now, as he opened the door, he recognized as the sort of outsider who fears a reporter as a criminal fears a court of law. He was yellow, like a Chinaman—as yellow as his teeth—and there was an Oriental look about his lean, flat face, with his lips drawn back from his protruding incisors. He was a "lunger"; that was evident—to Colburn's practised Denver eye—from the wasted neck that left the cords standing in two ridges behind his pale ears. He was packing a battered suit-case, open on his bed; and he continued to pack it even after he had glanced at Colburn over his shoulder.

"I 'm from the World, Mr. Sims," Colburn said as he shut the door. "I 'd like to have a: few minutes' talk with you."

Sims shook his head quickly. "I 've nothing to say