know that I could explain it to
you in a thoroughly logical and convincing way. The central fact, the
concrete thing, is that I do object most decidedly. I have spent too
much time in equipping myself to express valuable ideas in
discriminating language to be kicked out of a second-rate newspaper
office like an incompetent office-boy. Of course I shall not submit to
it."

"Do you care to tell me what you mean to do?"

"Do!" He hit the door-post a sudden blow with an unexpectedly large
hand. "I shall have myself elected editor of the _Post_."

"But--but--but--" said the girl, taken aback by the largeness of this
order--"But you don't expect to oust Colonel Cowles?"

"We are not necessarily speaking of to-morrow or next day. An actuary
will tell you that I am likely to outlive Colonel Cowles. I mean, first,
to have my dismissal recalled, and, second, to be made regular
assistant editor at three times my present salary. That is my immediate
reply to the directors of the Post. I am willing to let the editorship
wait till old Cowles dies."

"Tell me," said Sharlee, "would you personally like to be editor of the
_Post?_"

"_Like it!_ I'll resign the day after they elect me. Call it sheer
wounded vanity--anything you like! The name makes no difference. I know
only that I will have the editorship for a day--and all for the
worthless pleasure of pitching it in their faces." He looked past her
out of the window, and his light gray eyes filled with an indescribable
bitterness. "And to have the editorship," he thought out loud, "I must
unlearn everything that I know about writing, and deliberately learn to
write like a demagogic ass."

Sharlee tapped the calcimine with her pointed fingernails. He spoke, as
ever, with overweening confidence, but she knew that he would never win
any editorship in this spirit. He was going at the quest with a new
burst of intellectual contempt, though it was this very intellectual
contempt that had led to his downfall.

"But your own private work?"

"Don't speak of it, I beg!" He flinched uncontrollably; but of his own
accord he added, in carefully repressed tones: "To qualify for the
editorship of course means--a terrible interruption and delay. It means
that _I must side-track My Book for two months or even longer!_"

Two months! It would take him five years and probably he would not be
qualified then.

Sharlee hesitated. "Have you fully made up your mind to--to be editor?"

He turne