“Are you responsible for this?” Hal held up the morning’s clipping, headed “Surtaine Fakeries Explained.”

“Who are you?” asked Sterne, nervously hitching in his chair.

“I am Harrington Surtaine.”

The journalist whistled, a soft, long-drawn note.  “Dr. Surtaine’s son?” he inquired.

“Yes.”

“That’s awkward.”  “Not half as awkward as it’s going to be unless you apologize privately and publicly.”

Mr. Sterne looked at him estimatingly, at the same time wadding up a newspaper clipping from the desk in front of him.  This he cast at the slumberer with felicitous accuracy.

“Hoong!” observed that gentleman, starting up and caressing his cheek.

“Wake up, Mac.  Here’s a man from the Trouble Belt, with samples to show.”

The individual thus addressed slowly rose out of his chair, exhibiting a squat, gnarly figure surmounted by a very large head.

Hal’s hand came up out of his pocket, with the dog-whip writhing unpleasantly after it.  Simultaneously, the ex-sleeper projected himself, without any particular violence but with astonishing quickness, between the caller and his prey.  Without at all knowing whence it was derived, Hal became aware of a large, black, knobby stick, which it were inadequate to call a cane, in his new opponent’s grasp.

Of physical courage there was no lack in the scion of the Surtaine line.  Neither, however, was he wholly destitute of reasoning powers and caution.  The figure before him was of an unquestionable athleticism; the weapon of obvious weight and fiber.  The situation was embarrassing.

“Please don’t lick the editor,” said the interrupter of poetic justice good-humoredly.  “Appropriately framed and hung upon the wall, fifteen cents apiece.  Yah-ah-ah-oo!” he yawned prodigiously.  “Calm down,” he added.

Hal stared at the squat and agile figure.  “You’re the office bully and bouncer, I suppose,” he said.

“McGuire Ellis, at your service.  Bounce only when compelled.  Otherwise peaceful. And sleepy.”

“My business is with this man,” said Hal, indicating Sterne.  “Put up your toy, then, and state it in words of one syllable.”

For a moment the visitor pondered, drawing the whip through his hands, uncertainly.  “I’m not fool enough to go up against that war-club,” he remarked.

Mr. McGuire Ellis nodded approval.  “First sensible thing I’ve heard you say,” he remarked.

“But neither”—­here Hal’s jaw projected a little—­“am I going to let this thing drop.”

“Law?” inquired Sterne.  “If you think there’s any libel in what the ‘Clarion’ has said, ask your lawyer.  What do you want, anyway?”

Thus recalled to the more pacific phase of his errand, Hal produced his document.  “If you’ve got an iota of decency or fairness about you, you’ll print that,” he said.

Sterne glanced through it swiftly.  “Nothing doing,” he stated succinctly.  “Did Dr. Surtaine send you here with that thing?”