The Improving Editor, now secluded, stared wrathfully for some moments. Then he laughed, seized paper, and wrote in capitals:—
"When the editor in this compartment is to be exhibited, please notify him by knocking on this door before opening it. He will then rise from his sitting posture, come forward for inspection, and turn slowly round three times, if a mother, a school teacher, or a minister of the Gospel be among the visiting subscribers."
Renwick strode to his door. While pinning the placard on its outside he overheard the concluding remarks of Mr. Durley on Mr. Cummins, whose room was next in the long corridor: "Likewise talented editor of the Etiquette Department and the Puzzle Department. Mr. Cummins, Sir, seven lady teachers from the State of Maine are now honouring us in this party."
Renwick stood charmed to listen. He heard the noted author clack forward to shake hands all round meantime explaining in thin, high, affable volubility: "My de-ar friends, you have the good fortune to behold me in the very act of composing my new serial of ten Chapters, for ’The Blessing’ exclusively, entitled ’Jehu and Jerusha in Jerusalem,’ being the experiences of a strenuous New England brother and sister in the Holy Land, where our Lord innogerated the Christian religion, now, sad to say, under Mohammetan subjection. In this tale I am incorporating largely truthful incidents of my own and blessed wife’s last visit to the Holy Places where——"
Renwick slammed his door. He flung his pen in a transport of derision. Rebounding from his desk, it flew through an open window, perhaps to fall on some visitor to "The Blessing’s" lawn. He hastened to look down. Nobody was on gravel path or bench within possible reach of the missile. Renwick, relieved, mused anew on the singularities of the scene.
The vast "Blessing" Building stands amid a city block devoted largely to shaven turf, flower beds, grassed mounds, and gravel paths. It is approached from the street by a broad walk which bifurcates at thirty yards from the "Richardson" entrance, to surround a turfed truncated cone, from which rises a gigantic, severely draped, female figure. It is that bronze of Beneficence which, in the words of the famous New England sculptress, Miss Angela C. Amory Pue, "closely features Miss Martha Minnely in her grand early womanhood." In the extensive arms of the Beneficence a bronze volume so slants that spectators may read on its back, in gilt letters, "THE FAMILY BLESSING." Prettily pranked out in dwarf marginal plants on the turfy cone these words are pyramided: "LOVE. HEAVEN. BENEFICENCE. THE LATEST FASHIONS. MY COUNTRY, ’TIS OF THEE."