The town looked just the same. At that early hour, people were still going to work. Maxwell did not subscribe to the Gazette, which was an evening paper, but as he passed through the shop district adjoining the Rectangle, he heard a newsboy crying out something about a “great story—Rectangle church meeting—last night! Special edition!”

He refused to buy a copy thrust at him by another boy as he turned the corner onto the street where Grey lived. But when he came up to the house, he noticed a number of young men, two with cameras, standing outside, and recognized them as Gazette reporters. He walked up to the door and rang the bell. The reporters crowded around him.

Grey opened the door. One of the newspaper boys tried to force his way in, but Grey politely yet firmly blocked his entrance. “Come in, Mr. Maxwell. We have been waiting for you,” he said quietly. He did not even reply to the general clamor of the press representatives.

As soon as Mr. Maxwell was in the hall, Grey locked the door then turned, looked at Maxwell, waited a moment, then ushered him into the sitting room. Mr. Maxwell’s heart beat with tremendous excitement as he entered the room and saw the person waiting there to receive him.

Chapter Three

Mr. Jasper Carter, editor and proprietor of the Raymond Evening Gazette, appeared very much annoyed over something which had occurred in the office. It was the morning after the astonishing scene at the Rectangle Church, and about two hours after Mr. Maxwell had been admitted to Mr. Grey’s house.

Mr. Carter was annoyed at many things in the course of a day’s work at the Gazette office, and his temper was often at the exploding point. But this morning he was even more irritable and out of sorts.

Nothing was going right anywhere. He had succeeded in getting a “scoop” on the News, Mr. Norman’s paper, by printing an exceptional, early extra edition describing the meeting at the Rectangle, and putting into the “story” all the dramatic touches of which Barnes, his best reporter, was capable. Barnes had not been present at the meeting, but he wrote a full account of it as if he had been there, and even went so far as to describe the appearance of this “visitor from another world.” And there were three columns of interviews, garbled and distorted, with members of Grey’s church, some of whom had not been present at the meeting. Altogether, the “story” made intensely interesting reading to many families in Raymond that morning before they started on their day’s work.

But Mr. Jasper Carter was thoroughly dissatisfied. For some unaccountable reasons, he had not succeeded in getting any reliable information concerning this mysterious person who claimed to be Jesus. Not even the irrepressible Barnes had secured anything really tangible. And now, for some reason, there was no report from either Barnes or the new cub reporter who had been sent to secure a picture of the newcomer at all costs.