Impenetrability of expression is doubtless a valuable attribute to a joss.  Otherwise so many josses would not display it.  Upon the stony and placid visage of Mr. Greenough, never more joss-like than when, on the morning after Banneker went to The Retreat, he received the resultant note, the perusal thereof produced no effect.  Nor was there anything which might justly be called an expression, discernible between Mr. Greenough’s cloven chin-tip and Mr. Greenough’s pale fringe of hair, when, as Banneker entered the office at noon, he called the reporter to him.  Banneker’s face, on the contrary, displayed a quite different impression; that of amiability.

“Nothing in the Eyre story, Mr. Banneker!”

“Not a thing.”

“You saw Mr. Densmore?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Would he talk?”

“Yes; he made a statement.”

“It didn’t appear in the paper.”

“There was nothing to it but unqualified denial.”

“I see; I see.  That’s all, Mr. Banneker....  Oh, by the way.”

Banneker, who had set out for his desk, turned back.

“I had a note from you this morning.”

As this statement required no confirmation, Banneker gave it none.

“Containing your resignation.”

“Conditional upon my being assigned to pry into society or private scandals or rumors of them.”

“The Ledger does not recognize conditional resignation.”

“Very well.”  Banneker’s smile was as sunny and untroubled as a baby’s.

“I suppose you appreciate that some one must cover this kind of news.”

“Yes.  It will have to be some one else.”

The faintest, fleeting suspicion of a frown troubled the Brahminical calm of Mr. Greenough’s brow, only to pass into unwrinkled blandness.

“Further, you will recognize that, for the protection of the paper, I must have at call reporters ready to perform any emergency duty.”

“Perfectly,” agreed Banneker.

“Mr. Banneker,” queried Mr. Greenough in a semi-purr, “are you too good for your job?”

“Certainly.”

For once the personification of city-deskness, secure though he was in the justice of his position, was discomfited.  “Too good for The Ledger?” he demanded in protest and rebuke.

“Let me put it this way; I’m too good for any job that won’t let me look a man square between the eyes when I meet him on it.”

“A dull lot of newspapers we’d have if all reporters took that view,” muttered Mr. Greenough.

“It strikes me that what you’ve just said is the severest kind of an indictment of the whole business, then,” retorted Banneker.

“A business that is good enough for a good many first-class men, even though you may not consider it so for you.  Possibly being for the time—­for a brief time—­a sort of public figure, yourself, has—­”

“Nothing at all to do with it,” interrupted the urbane reporter.  “I’ve always been this way.  It was born in me.”