The Red Pander Chronicles.

New News in the New Court, Part 1.

January, 1940.

The thin man's shoes clicked upon the staircases he descended.

His manner was dignified,

yet subservient, though it seemed to Timothy Purley that his expression hardened as he

approached the podium at the base of the stairs, perhaps sensing that Perley was no one to whom

he needed to genuflect. I beg your pardon, sir, the thin man said, with an ever so slight

lowering of his head, suggesting that the phrase was by way of apology for not being at his post.

"'The tone, however, Perley thought, was still just one shade off what he might have used for a hobo,

"'sleeping on the lawn.'

"'The thin man raised his eyebrow inquiringly, and Purley sensed this was his opportunity to explain himself.

Timothy Purley, Toronto Chronicle, he said, gruffly almost in spite of himself.

I'm here to see August Fenwick.

The thin man frowned and raised his nose even higher in the air if such a thing were possible.

Newspaper men are not permitted within the club McCaw,' he said in quiet horror at the thought.

"'Timothy Purley was unamused.

"'Mr. Fenwick is the owner of the Daily Chronicle,' he said, chewing on his words as though they were a plug of very old tobacco.

"'And he has instructed me to meet him here on newspaper business.

"'I suppose that makes him a newspaper man himself.

"'Perhaps you'd like to give him the bad news that he is no longer welcome on the property.' Purley didn't believe for a moment that the wealthy young man about town who owned the Chronicle and everything ended including Purley himself qualified as a newspaper man,

a term which Purley rarefied as deeply as the thin man reviled it.

...