Chapter 3

Ten days after Mrs. Ryves's visit he paid by appointment another call
on the editor of the Promiscuous. He found him in the little
wainscoted Chelsea house, which had to Peter's sense the smoky
brownness of an old pipebowl, surrounded with all the emblems of his
office--a litter of papers, a hedge of encyclopaedias, a photographic
gallery of popular contributors--and he promised at first to consume
very few of the moments for which so many claims competed. It was
Mr. Locket himself however who presently made the interview spacious,
gave it air after discovering that poor Baron had come to tell him
something more interesting than that he couldn't after all patch up
his tale. Peter had begun with this, had intimated respectfully that
it was a case in which both practice and principle rebelled, and
then, perceiving how little Mr. Locket was affected by his audacity,
had felt weak and slightly silly, left with his heroism on his hands.
He had armed himself for a struggle, but the Promiscuous didn't even
protest, and there would have been nothing for him but to go away
with the prospect of never coming again had he not chanced to say
abruptly, irrelevantly, as he got up from his chair:

"Do you happen to be at all interested in Sir Dominick Ferrand?"

Mr. Locket, who had also got up, looked over his glasses. "The late
Sir Dominick?"

"The only one; you know the family's extinct."

Mr. Locket shot his young friend another sharp glance, a silent
retort to the glibness of this information. "Very extinct indeed.
I'm afraid the subject today would scarcely be regarded as
attractive."

"Are you very sure?" Baron asked.

Mr. Locket leaned forward a little, with his fingertips on his table,
in the attitude of giving permission to retire. "I might consider
the question in a special connection." He was silent a minute, in a
way that relegated poor Peter to the general; but meeting the young
man's eyes again he asked: "Are you--a--thinking of proposing an
article upon him?"

"Not exactly proposing it--because I don't yet quite see my way; but
the idea rather appeals to me."

Mr. Locket emitted the safe assertion that this eminent statesman had
been a striking figure in his day; then he added: "Have you been
studying him?"

"I've been dipping into him."

"I'm afraid he's scarcely a question of the hour," said Mr. Locket,
shuffling papers together.

"I think I could make him one," Peter Baron declared.

Mr. Locket stared again; he was unable to repress an unattenuated
"You?"

"I have some new material," said the