“Naw!” replied the policeman with scorn.  “That’s Mr. Banneker’s house.”

“Banneker?  Who’s Banneker?”

With augmented contempt the officer requested the latest quotations on clover seed.  “He’s the editor of The Patriot,” he vouchsafed.  “A millionaire, too, they say.  And a good sport.”

“Givin’ a party, huh?”

“Every Saturday night,” answered he of the uniform and night-stick, who, having participated below-stairs in the reflections of the entertainment, was condescending enough to be informative.  “Say, the swellest folks in New York fall over themselves to get invited here.”

“Why ain’t he on Fi’th Avenyah, then?” demanded the other.

“He makes the Fi’th Avenyah bunch come to him,” explained the policeman, with obvious pride.  “Took a couple of these old houses on long lease, knocked out the walls, built ’em into one, on his own plan, and, say!  It’s a pallus!  I been all through it.”

A lithely powerful figure took the tall steps of the house three at a time, and turned, under the light, to toss away a cigar.

“Cheest!” exclaimed the wayfarer in tones of awe:  “that’s K.O.  Doyle, the middleweight, ain’t it?”

“Sure!  That’s nothin’.  If you was to get inside there you’d bump into some of the biggest guys in town; a lot of high-ups from Wall Street, and maybe a couple of these professors from Columbyah College, and some swell actresses, and a bunch of high-brow writers and painters, and a dozen dames right off the head of the Four Hundred list.  He takes ’em, all kinds, Mr. Banneker does, just so they’re somethin’.  He’s a wonder.”

The wayfarer passed on to his oniony boarding-house, a few steps along, deeply marveling at the irruption of magnificence into the neighborhood in the brief year since he had been away.

Equipages continued to draw up, unload, and withdraw, until twelve thirty, when, without so much as a preliminary wink, the House shut its Three Eyes.  A scant five minutes earlier, an alert but tired-looking man, wearing the slouch hat of the West above his dinner coat, had briskly mounted the steps and, after colloquy with the cautious, black guardian of the door, had been admitted to a side room, where he was presently accosted by a graying, spare-set guest with ruminative eyes.

“I heard about this show by accident, and wanted in,” explained the newcomer in response to the other’s look of inquiry.  “If I could see Banneker—­”

“It will be some little time before you can see him.  He’s at work.”

“But this is his party, isn’t it?”

“Yes.  The party takes care of itself until he comes down.”

“Oh; does it?  Well, will it take care of me?”

“Are you a friend of Mr. Banneker’s?”

“In a way.  In fact, I might claim to have started him on his career of newspaper crime.  I’m Gardner of the Angelica City Herald.”

“Ban will be glad to see you.  Take off your things.  I am Russell Edmonds.”