“Nothing.  Yes—­that is—­” Betton picked up the note.  “There’s a gentleman, a Mr. Vyse, coming to see me at ten.”

Strett glanced at the clock.  “Yes, sir.  You’ll remember that ten was the hour you appointed for the secretaries to call, sir.”

Betton nodded.  “I’ll see Mr. Vyse first.  My clothes, please.”

As he got into them, in the state of irritable hurry that had become almost chronic with him, he continued to think about Duncan Vyse.  They had seen a lot of each other for the few years after both had left Harvard:  the hard happy years when Betton had been grinding at his business and Vyse—­poor devil!—­trying to write.  The novelist recalled his friend’s attempts with a smile; then the memory of one small volume came back to him.  It was a novel:  “The Lifted Lamp.”  There was stuff in that, certainly.  He remembered Vyse’s tossing it down on his table with a gesture of despair when it came back from the last publisher.  Betton, taking it up indifferently, had sat riveted till daylight.  When he ended, the impression was so strong that he said to himself:  “I’ll tell Apthorn about it—­I’ll go and see him to-morrow.”  His own secret literary yearnings gave him a passionate desire to champion Vyse, to see him triumph over the ignorance and timidity of the publishers.  Apthorn was the youngest of the guild, still capable of opinions and the courage of them, a personal friend of Betton’s, and, as it happened, the man afterward to become known as the privileged publisher of “Diadems and Faggots.”  Unluckily the next day something unexpected turned up, and Betton forgot about Vyse and his manuscript.  He continued to forget for a month, and then came a note from Vyse, who was ill, and wrote to ask what his friend had done.  Betton did not like to say “I’ve done nothing,” so he left the note unanswered, and vowed again:  “I’ll see Apthorn.”

The following day he was called to the West on business, and was gone a month.  When he came back, there was another note from Vyse, who was still ill, and desperately hard up.  “I’ll take anything for the book, if they’ll advance me two hundred dollars.”  Betton, full of compunction, would gladly have advanced the sum himself; but he was hard up too, and could only swear inwardly:  “I’ll write to Apthorn.”  Then he glanced again at the manuscript, and reflected:  “No—­there are things in it that need explaining.  I’d better see him.”

Once he went so far as to telephone Apthorn, but the publisher was out.  Then he finally and completely forgot.

One Sunday he went out of town, and on his return, rummaging among the papers on his desk, he missed “The Lifted Lamp,” which had been gathering dust there for half a year.  What the deuce could have become of it?  Betton spent a feverish hour in vainly increasing the disorder of his documents, and then bethought himself of calling the maid-servant, who first indignantly denied having touched anything ("I can see that’s true from the dust,” Betton scathingly interjected), and then mentioned with hauteur that a young lady had called in his absence and asked to be allowed to get a book.