Having finished his writing, one reeking midnight, he sat, spent, at his desk, hating the thought of the shut-in place that he called home.  Better to spend the night on a bench in some square, as he had done often enough in the earlier days.  He rose, took his hat, and had reached the first landing when the steps wavered and faded in front of him and he found himself clutching for the rail.  A pair of hands gripped his shoulders and held him up.

“What’s the matter, Mr. Banneker?” asked a voice.

“God!” muttered Banneker.  “I wish I were back on the desert.”

“You want a drink,” prescribed his volunteer prop.

As his vision and control reestablished themselves, Banneker found himself being led downstairs and to the nearest bar by young Fentriss Smith, who ordered two soda cocktails.

Of Smith he knew little except that the office called him “the permanent twenty-five-dollar man.”  He was one of those earnest, faithful, totally uninspired reporters, who can be relied upon implicitly for routine news, but are constitutionally impotent to impart color and life to any subject whatsoever.  Patiently he had seen younger and newer men overtake and pass him; but he worked on inexorably, asking for nothing, wearing the air of a scholar with some distant and abstruse determination in view.  Like Banneker he had no intimates in the office.

“The desert,” echoed Smith in his quiet, well-bred voice.  “Isn’t it pretty hot, there, too?”

“It’s open,” said Banneker.  “I’m smothering here.”

“You look frazzled out, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“I feel frazzled out; that’s what I mind.”

“Suppose you come out with me to-night as soon as I report to the desk,” suggested the other.

Banneker, refreshed by the tingling drink, looked down at him in surprise.  “Where?” he asked.

“I’ve got a little boat out here in the East River.”

“A boat?  Lord, that sounds good!” sighed Banneker.

“Does it?  Then see here!  Why couldn’t you put in a few days with me, and cool off?  I’ve often wanted to talk to you about the newspaper business, and get your ideas.”

“But I’m newer at it than you are.”

“For a fact!  Just the same you’ve got the trick of it and I haven’t.  I’ll go around to your place while you pack a suitcase, and we’re off.”

“That’s very good of you.”  Accustomed though he was to the swift and ready comradeship of a newspaper office, Banneker was puzzled by this advance from the shy and remote Smith.  “All right:  if you’ll let me share expenses,” he said presently.

Smith seemed taken aback at this.  “Just as you like,” he assented.  “Though I don’t quite know—­We’ll talk of that later.”

While Banneker was packing in his room, Smith, seated on the window-sill, remarked: 

“I ought to tell you that we have to go through a bad district to get there.”