It was with the sullen repulsion of a vegetarian who finds a caterpillar in his salad that he now sat glaring at them.

The title had seemed so promising overnight—­so full of strenuous possibilities.  It was still speciously attractive; but now that the moment had arrived for writing the story its flaws became manifest.

What was a wand of death?  It sounded good; but, coming down to hard facts, what was it?  You cannot write a story about a wand of death without knowing what a wand of death is; and, conversely, if you have thought of such a splendid title you cannot jettison it offhand.  Ashe rumpled his hair and gnawed his pen.

There came a knock at the door.

Ashe spun round in his chair.  This was the last straw!  If he had told Mrs. Ball once that he was never to be disturbed in the morning on any pretext whatsoever, he had told her twenty times.  It was simply too infernal to be endured if his work time was to be cut into like this.  Ashe ran over in his mind a few opening remarks.

“Come in!” he shouted, and braced himself for battle.

A girl walked in—­the girl of the first-floor front; the girl with the blue eyes, who had laughed at his Larsen Exercises.

Various circumstances contributed to the poorness of the figure Ashe cut in the opening moments of this interview.  In the first place, he was expecting to see his landlady, whose height was about four feet six, and the sudden entry of somebody who was about five feet seven threw the universe temporarily out of focus.  In the second place, in anticipation of Mrs. Bell’s entry, he had twisted his face into a forbidding scowl, and it was no slight matter to change this on the spur of the moment into a pleasant smile.  Finally, a man who has been sitting for half an hour in front of a sheet of paper bearing the words:  “The Adventure of the Wand of Death,” and trying to decide what a wand of death might be, has not his mind under proper control.

The net result of these things was that, for perhaps half a minute, Ashe behaved absurdly.  He goggled and he yammered.  An alienist, had one been present, would have made up his mind about him without further investigation.  For an appreciable time he did not think of rising from his seat.  When he did, the combined leap and twist he executed practically amounted to a Larsen Exercise.

Nor was the girl unembarrassed.  If Ashe had been calmer he would have observed on her cheek the flush which told that she, too, was finding the situation trying.  But, woman being ever better equipped with poise than man, it was she who spoke first.

“I’m afraid I’m disturbing you.”

“No, no!” said Ashe.  “Oh, no; not at all—­not at all!  No.  Oh, no—­not at all—­no!” And would have continued to play on the theme indefinitely had not the girl spoken again.

“I wanted to apologize,” she said, “for my abominable rudeness in laughing at you just now.  It was idiotic of me and I don’t know why I did it.  I’m sorry.”