"'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.
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