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352 intrusion into my affairs, but turned at once to take up matters of business.

"Write me something gay and satirical, as I, who can always spot my man, perceive that you are a very humorous character," came from the editor between the puffs of his cigar.

"Very well, and when am I to bring it to you?"

"To-morrow afternoon at two. I shall pay you on Monday, as the first number of my newspaper, called Dawn, will appear on all the news stands on Sunday. Oh, I shall make quite a change in the journalism of to-day, quite a change, I assure you; for I have a very unusual staff, quite exceptional in fact."

Until late in the night I wrote a gay, satirical feuilleton. Through it I laughed at everything; consequently I laughed at my hunger, my despair, my disenchantment; about the pusillanimity and the baseness in men; about fortunate and unfortunate ones; about life and even about death. Only a man who was really hungry could have written in such a careless and flippant manner.

The editor was enchanted—but I had two days to wait for my pay and only forty kopecks left as working capital to finance my operations of life for the interim.

Finally Monday came and I hurried to the editorial rooms of Dawn little behind its diurnal namesake. The door was open, and the janitor was sweeping papers out of the rooms, from which all the furniture had disappeared.

"Where is Mr. Rass?" I queried, feeling my legs giving way underneath me.

"He went away without paying us a kopeck," the man answered with a curse.

I wandered out into the street and began inquiring among the news-dealers about this weekly Dawn, which