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Despite her indolence, Ardessa was useful to O’Mally as a social reminder. She was the card catalogue of his ever-changing personal relations. O’Mally went in for everything and got tired of everything; that was why he made a good editor. After he was through with people, Ardessa was very skilful in covering his retreat. She read and answered the letters of admirers who had begun to bore him. When great authors, who had been dined and feted the month before, were suddenly left to cool their heels in the reception-room, thrown upon the suave hospitality of the grand old man at the desk, it was Ardessa who went out and made soothing and plausible explanations as to why the editor could not see them. She was the brake that checked the too-eager neophyte, the emollient that eased the severing of relationships, the gentle extinguisher of the lights that failed. When there were no longer messages of hope and cheer to be sent to ardent young writers and reformers, Ardessa delivered, as sweetly as possible, whatever messages were left.

In handling these people with whom O’Mally was quite through, Ardessa had gradually developed an industry which was immensely gratifying to her own vanity. Not only did she not crush them; she even fostered them a little. She continued to advise them in the reception-room and “personally” received their manuscripts long after O’Mally had declared that he would never read another line they wrote. She let them outline their plans for stories and articles to her, promising to bring these suggestions to the editor’s attention. She denied herself to nobody, was gracious even to the Shakspere-Bacon man, the perpetual-motion man, the travel-article man, the ghosts which haunt every magazine office. The writers who had had their happy hour of O’Mally’s favor kept feeling that Ardessa might reinstate them. She answered their letters of inquiry in her most polished and elegant style, and even gave them hints as to the subjects in which the restless editor was or was not interested at the moment: she feared it would be useless to send him an article on “How to Trap Lions,” because he had just bought an article on “Elephant-Shooting in Majuba Land,” etc.

So when O’Mally plunged into his office at 11:30 on this, the fourth day of May, having just got back from three-days’ fishing, he found Ardessa in the reception-room, surrounded by a little court of discards. This was annoying, for he always wanted his stenographer at once. Telling the office boy to give her a hint that she was needed, he threw off his hat and topcoat and began to race through the pile of letters Ardessa had put on his desk. When she entered, he did not wait for her polite inquiries about his trip, but broke in at once.

“What is that fellow who writes about phossy jaw still hanging round here for? I don’t want any articles on phossy jaw, and if I did, I wouldn’t want his.”

“He has just sold an article on the match industry to ‘The New Age,’ Mr. O’Mally,” Ardessa replied as she took her seat at the editor’s right.

“Why does he have to come and tell us about it? We’ve nothing to do with ‘The New Age.’ And that prison-reform guy, what’s he loafing about for?”

Ardessa bridled.

“You remember, Mr. O’Mally, he brought letters of introduction from Governor Harper, the reform Governor of Mississippi.”

O’Mally jumped up, kicking over his waste-basket in his impatience.

“That was months ago. I went through his letters and went through him, too. He hasn’t got anything we want. I’ve been through with Governor Harper a long while. We’re asleep at the switch in here. And let me tell you, if I catch sight of that causes-of-blindness-in-babies woman around here again, I’ll do something violent. Clear them out, Miss Devine! Clear them out! We need a traffic policeman in this office. Have you got that article on ‘Stealing Our National Water Power’ ready for me?”