As the clock in the library of the club struck midnight, Condy laid down his pen, shoved the closely written sheets of paper from him, and leaned back in his chair, his fingers to his tired eyes.

He was sitting at a desk in one of the further corners of the room and shut off by a great Japanese screen.

He was in his shirt-sleeves, his hair was tumbled, his fingers ink-stained, and his face a little pale.
Since late in the evening he had been steadily writing.

Three chapters of "In Defiance of Authority" were done, and he was now at work on the fourth.

The day after the excursion to the Presidio--that wonderful event which seemed to Condy to mark the birthday of some new man within him--the idea had suddenly occurred to him that Captain Jack's story of the club of the exiles, the boom restaurant, and the filibustering expedition was precisely the novel of adventure of which the Centennial Company had spoken.