“‘Ever try the reporters?’ I asked him.
“‘Last month,’ says Mr. Vaucross, ‘my expenditure for lunches to reporters was $124.80.’
“‘Get anything out of that?’ I asks.
“‘That reminds me,’ says he; ‘add $8.50 for pepsin. Yes, I got indigestion.’
“‘How am I supposed to push along your scramble for prominence?’ I inquires. ‘Contrast?’
“‘Something of that sort to-night,’ says Vaucross. ‘It grieves me; but I am forced to resort to eccentricity.’ And here he drops his napkin in his soup and rises up and bows to a gent who is devastating a potato under a palm across the room.
“‘The Police Commissioner,’ says my climber, gratified. “‘Friend,’ says I, in a hurry, ‘have ambitions but don’t kick a rung out of your ladder. When you use me as a stepping stone to salute the police you spoil my appetite on the grounds that I may be degraded and incriminated. Be thoughtful.’
“At the Quaker City squab en casserole the idea about Artemisia Blye comes to me.
“‘Suppose I can manage to get you in the papers,’ says I—‘a column or two every day in all of ’em and your picture in most of ’em for a week. How much would it be worth to you?’
“‘Ten thousand dollars,’ says Vaucross, warm in a minute. ‘But no murder,’ says he; ‘and I won’t wear pink pants at a cotillon.’
