plexion. No insult to his character could
have enraged him like a slight put upon the least of these his articles.
He sat back in his seat, feeling white, and something clicked inside his
head. He remembered having heard that click once before. It was the
night he determined to evolve the final theory of social progress, which
would wipe out all other theories as the steam locomotive had wiped out
the prairie schooner.

He knew well enough what that click meant now. He had got a new purpose,
and that was to exact personal reparation from the criminal who had made
Him and His Work the butt of street-car loafers. Never, it seemed to
him, could he feel clean again until he had wiped off those fleas with
gore.

To his grim inquiry Colonel Cowles replied that the head proof-reader,
Mr. Pat, was responsible for typographical errors, and Mr. Pat did not
"come on" till 6.30. It was now but 5.50. Queed sat down, wrote his next
day's article and handed it to the Colonel, who read the title and
coughed.

"I shall require no article from you to-morrow or next day. On the
following day"--here the Colonel opened a drawer and consulted a
schedule--"I shall receive with pleasure your remarks on 'Fundamental
Principles of Distribution--Article Four.'"

Queed ascended to the next floor, a noisy, discordant floor, full of
metal tables on castors, and long stone-topped tables not on castors,
and Mergenthaler machines, and slanting desk-like structures holding
fonts of type. Rough board partitions rose here and there; over
everything hung the deadly scent of acids from the engravers' room.

"That's him now," said an ink-smeared lad, and nodded toward a tall,
gangling, mustachioed fellow in a black felt hat who had just come up
the stairs.

Queed marched straight for the little cubbyhole where the proof-readers
and copy-holders sweated through their long nights.

"You are Mr. Pat, head proof-reader of the _Post_?"

"That's me, sor," said Mr. Pat, and he turned with rather a sharp glance
at the other's tone.

"What excuse have you to offer for making my article ridiculous and me a
common butt?"

"An' who the divil may you be, please?"

"I am Mr. Queed, special editorial writer for this paper. Look at this."
He handed over the folded _Post_, with the typographical enormity
heavily underscored in blue. "What do you mean by falsifying my language
and putting into my mouth an absurd observation about the most loathsome
of vermin?"