It was Isidora who found out first what was in her father's mind, because she saw the advertisement which Alexander the Great had written for the papers. It lay on the parlour table, in clear black and white for any eye to read, when Isidora came to clear away the litter of odds and ends that Emmie the "hired girl" might lay the dinner things.

"Oh, Pa!" she gasped. "Is that what you're going to do?"

"Of course," said Alexander the Great, staring at her over his spectacles, as he wiped his pen and pushed his chair from the table. "Tell that gel to hurry up. Don't she know by dis dat I've got just twenty minutes for dinner? I'll have to go before dessert, if she don't get busy."

"You want to change the subject, Pa," said Isidora.

"No, I don't. Why for? 'Tain't your business."

"'Twas me had the idea. He won't stand bein' advertised."

"Pooh!" said Alexander.

"I tell you he won't. He'll quit. He's afraid the police are onto him, anyhow."

"Milton ain't lodged no complaint. Nobody has, or I'd have kicked de feller out, first thing, when you tol' me who he was. Nobody ain't goin' to touch him."

"And nobody ain't goin' to keep him, when he sees that," added Isidora, pointing to the paragraph written in Alexander the Great's clearest handwriting.

"He needn't see it, unless you blab, silly gel," said her father. "What for should he read newspaper advertisements? I guess he got somet'in' else to do."

"Somebody'll tell him."

"People come here to eat, not talk. Anyhow, dis goes."

And it went.

It went to several papers; and though Alexander the Great paid only for the insertion of small paragraphs in the columns of the journals, he chuckled to himself in anticipation of receiving far more valuable advertisements, gratis; nor was he wrong. In matters of business within the scope of his capabilities Alexander was seldom wrong. That was why he was great. True it might be that "Lord Loveland of the Waldorf-Astoria" (as Tony Kidd had dubbed him) was a back number, and had been superseded in public esteem by at least two promising murderers, and one lively divorcÉe; nevertheless, even small crimes were thankfully received by newspaper men and women, as Alexander had reason to know. Did he not owe part of his present success to a dearth of sea-serpents, just about the time when Bill Willing had begun to decorate the walls of the new red restaurant in Twelfth Street? Alexander had spent a little money then in sprinkling a few paragraphs over dull columns that set forth the advantages of pale pills, or bath chairs. Reporters on the prowl had happened to read, happened to laugh, and eventually happened to pass through Twelfth Street.

So now Alexander hoped again for something to happen, and did not hope in vain. Journalists were not needing sea-serpents at this season, which was rosy with debutantes, pearly with brides, and sparkling with balls and dinner parties, as well as lurid with exciting murders. But Tony Kidd's enterprising eye lit on Alexander's inspiration, while it was still as fresh as tomorrow's bread, in the issue of "New York Light" which was in the making.

He considered Loveland still his own—though Tony had passed on to better "scoops" since the night when he had changed his first sketchy impressions of the "Difficult Young Man to Approach" into a "story" far more entertaining. He was greatly amused at the latest development of "l'affaire Loveland," and thought that even a preoccupied public would be amused, too, especially as Alexander's own paragraph was quaintly quotable.

"Lost at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the Marquis of Loveland. Found, Ditto, at Alexander the Great's in Twelfth Street. If you want to be served by a Lord, dine at Alexander's for 25C, Marquis included. You eat your dinner; Waiter Loveland does the rest."

Tony was very busy just then, having an important errand out of town by the first train in the morning, but he secretly commissioned an understudy to be at Alexander's when the red restaurant should open its doors; to order breakfast, and, while seeming to eat, to sketch the new English waiter. The understudy was not to question Loveland himself, but, if possible, Alexander, and was not to let the waiter see that he was under fire of attention. Notes of Loveland's appearance, as well as a drawing, must be made for Mr. Kidd's benefit, because the sharp young journalist was not going to let himself be "spoofed." It was quite on the cards that some other enterprising person might have taken a fancy to call himself a Marquis, in order to attract customers to Alexander's; and if so, Tony's little story would have to differ slightly from the original design.

When he came back from the country, late in the afternoon, however, Mr. Kidd at once recognised the cleverly executed sketch. There was no longer any doubt in his mind that the young man who had slammed the door in his face at the Waldorf-Astoria was now "pie slinger" in a cheap downtown restaurant.

Tony questioned his understudy as to what he had found out, and learned that Alexander himself had been privately interviewed. The great man had discouraged the artist-reporter from talking with the "Marquis," who, it seemed, was ignorant that he had begun to figure again in the newspapers. The fellow had been starving, said Alexander, and permitted the use of his name to a limited extent, but "might kick" if he heard of the advertisements. Alexander wished him to "kind of get used to things" before people noticed him much, for he was a queer fish, close-mouthed, inclined to hold onto the ragged edges of dignity in spite of his fall. The idea was to let it leak out very gradually that "Lord Loveland" was being "worked to draw a crowd"; and thus admonished, Tony Kidd's understudy had let the new waiter alone.

Tony Kidd himself, however, only laughed, because he understood Alexander's little ways, and guessed how he expected to get his money's worth out of the newspapers. The journalist wrote his story, which he fancied exceedingly, and his editor was pleased with it, too, although it was sure to give Alexander a tremendous free boom. Next morning there was half a column on a good page of "Light" (including space for the understudy's line portrait of a tall young man in evening dress, with a coffee pot in one hand and a milk-jug in the other); and even the printers grinned at the heading: "The Marquis of Twelfth Street: Newly Acquired Title."