“Well, what of it?” said Carter gruffly.

Barnes looked at the editor silently, then answered, “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Yes. That’s what I said. Nothing.”

“The whole affair is nothing so far. What have we got from all this fuss and mystery? Can you turn out two or three columns for the edition?”

“I think I can,” Barnes replied, but Carter detected a strange note of hesitation.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked angrily.

“I don’t know, Mr. Carter. I feel very queer after seeing him. I don’t know how to describe it. You will know better after you have met him.”

“Well, maybe I shall. But look here, Barnes. Of course we will play up the story about this mysterious stranger who calls himself Jesus as long as it makes good money for the Gazette, but don’t expect me to be conned by any faker or any mysteries beyond clairvoyance or hypnotism or the like. Don’t tell me that, in this age of the world, anything supernatural is possible in Raymond. Oh no! You can’t deceive your Uncle Jasper with any such romance.”

“Wait until you see him,” Barnes said, still speaking with that unusual backward mental glance over the morning’s incidents.

“Well, I will see him. I’ll go to church tomorrow. I don’t know when I’ve last been,” he added with a short laugh. “Guess it won’t hurt me.”

“You’ll have to go early to get in. Word is getting out all over town. Everybody is going.”

“Can’t you get Maxwell to reserve us seats? I hate to go too early and wait.”

“I don’t think there will be any reserved seats,” Barnes answered briefly. “Mr. Maxwell said the doors would be open at eight o’clock.”

“Eight o’clock! Do you think I am going at that hour to wait until eleven?”

“You’ll have to if you want to get in,” said Barnes as he went out of the office.

Carter called after him sharply, “Overhaul your camera and the whole outfit. It’s simply nonsense to come off as you did this morning. I have already sent that sub up to Maxwell’s to get a picture. He needn’t come back unless he gets it!”

“You sent—” Barnes began, then closed his lips and walked down the hall to the reporters’ room. He clicked off his story on the typewriter with characteristic rapidity, but it outran his notes, and he had piled up a three-column article before noon. He took it down to the first edition linotype man, then went out on the street.

A large crowd was in front of the Gazette office, eagerly reading the bulletin announcing the afternoon edition in brief lines. Several of Barnes’s acquaintances excitedly stopped him to ask questions. He put them all off, referring them all to the paper which was then running off the press. In less than half an hour, the boys were out on the streets crying out the news. It was a significant fact that they had caught the one line at the head of Barnes’s story, and were shouting it carelessly.