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“My dear fellow,” said Van Sweller, politely, but with a stubborn tightening of his lips, “I’m sorry it doesn’t please you, but there’s no help for it. Even a character in a story has rights that an author cannot ignore. The hero of a story of New York social life must dine at —-* [*See advertising column, “Where to Dine Well,” in the daily newspapers.] at least once during its action.”

“‘Must,'” I echoed, disdainfully; “why ‘must’? Who demands it?”

“The magazine editors,” answered Van Sweller, giving me a glance of significant warning.

“But why?” I persisted.

“To please subscribers around Kankakee, Ill.,” said Van Sweller, without hesitation.

“How do you know these things?” I inquired, with sudden suspicion. “You never came into existence until this morning. You are only a character in fiction, anyway. I, myself, created you. How is it possible for you to know anything?”

“Pardon me for referring to it,” said Van Sweller, with a sympathetic smile, “but I have been the hero of hundreds of stories of this kind.”

I felt a slow flush creeping into my face.

“I thought…” I stammered; “I was hoping …that is… Oh, well, of course an absolutely original conception in fiction is impossible in these days.”

“Metropolitan types,” continued Van Sweller, kindly, “do not offer a hold for much originality. I’ve sauntered through every story in pretty much the same way. Now and then the women writers have made me cut some rather strange capers, for a gentleman; but the men generally pass me along from one to another without much change. But never yet, in any story, have I failed to dine at —-.*” [*Footnote: See advertising column, “Where to Dine Well,” in the daily newspapers.]

“You will fail this time,” I said, emphatically.

“Perhaps so,” admitted Van Sweller, looking out of the window into the street below, “but if so it will be for the first time. The authors all send me there. I fancy that many of them would have liked to accompany me, but for the little matter of the expense.”

“I say I will be touting for no restaurant,” I repeated, loudly. “You are subject to my will, and I declare that you shall not appear of record this evening until the time arrives for you to rescue Miss Ffolliott again. If the reading public cannot conceive that you have dined during that interval at some one of the thousands of establishments provided for that purpose that do not receive literary advertisement it may suppose, for aught I care, that you have gone fasting.”

“Thank you,” said Van Sweller, rather coolly, “you are hardly courteous. But take care! it is at your own risk that you attempt to disregard a fundamental principle in metropolitan fiction–one that is dear alike to author and reader. I shall, of course attend to my duty when it comes time to rescue your heroine; but I warn you that it will be your loss if you fail to send me to-night to dine at —-.*” [Footnote: * See advertising column, “Where to Dine Well,” in the daily newspapers.]

“I will take the consequences if there are to be any,” I replied. “I am not yet come to be sandwich man for an eating-house.”

I walked over to a table where I had left my cane and gloves. I heard the whirr of the alarm in the cab below and I turned quickly. Van Sweller was gone.

I rushed down the stairs and out to the curb. An empty hansom was just passing. I hailed the driver excitedly.

“See that auto cab halfway down the block?” I shouted. “Follow it. Don’t lose sight of it for an instant, and I will give you two dollars!”

If I only had been one of the characters in my story instead of myself I could easily have offered $10 or $25 or even $100. But $2 was all I felt justified in expending, with fiction at its present rates.

The cab driver, instead of lashing his animal into a foam, proceeded at a deliberate trot that suggested a by-the-hour arrangement.