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 “Remember, we are leaving early, Scott,” said Kathleen. “You have to finish your editorial to-night.”

“Surely you don’t make him work at night, too?” Rosamond asked. “Doesn’t he have to rest his brain sometimes? Humour is always better if it’s spontaneous.”

“Oh, that’s the trouble with me,” Scott assured her. “Unless I keep my nose to the grindstone, I’m too damned spontaneous and tell the truth, and the public won’t stand for it. It’s not an editorial I have to finish, it’s the daily prose poem I do for the syndicate, for which I get twenty-five beans. This is the motif: Bang, bang!”

He threw his cigar-end savagely into the fireplace. He knew that Rosamond detested his editorials and his jingles. She had fastidious taste in literature, like her mother—though he didn’t think she had half the general intelligence of his wife. She also, now that she was Tom Outland’s heir, detested to hear sums of money mentioned, especially small sums.

After the good-nights were said, and they were