n his
companion's sleeve.

Mr. Fisbee twisted up another sheet, and employed his eyes in following
the course of a crack in the plaster, a slender black aperture which
staggered across the dusty ceiling and down the dustier wall to
disappear behind a still dustier map of Carlow County. "That's the
trouble!" exclaimed Parker, observing the other's preoccupation. "Soon
as you get to writing a line or two that seems kind of promising, you
begin to take a morbid interest in that blamed crack. It's busted up
enough copy for me, the last eight days, to have filled her up twenty
times over. I don't know as I ever care to see that crack again. I
turned my back on it, but there wasn't any use in that, because if a
fly lights on you I watch him like a brother, and if there ain't any fly
I've caught a mania for tapping my teeth with a pencil, that is just as
good."

To these two gentlemen, thus disengaged, reentered (after a much longer
absence than Miss Selina's quatrain justified) Mr. Ross Schofield, a
healthy glow of exertion lending pleasant color to his earnest visage,
and an almost visible laurel of success crowning his brows. In addition
to this imaginary ornament, he was horned with pencils over both ears,
and held some scribbled sheets in his hand.

"I done a good deal down there," he announced cheerfully, drawing up a
chair to the desk. "I thought up a heap of things I've heard lately, and
they'll fill up mighty well. That there poem of Miss Seliny's was a kind
of an inspiration to me, and I tried one myself, and it didn't come
hard at all. When I got started once, it jest seemed to flow from me.
I didn't set none of it up," he added modestly, but with evident
consciousness of having unearthed genius in himself and an elate
foreknowledge of the treat in store for his companions. "I thought I'd
ort to see how you liked it first." He offered the papers to Mr. Parker,
but the foreman shook his head.

"You read it, Ross," I said. "I don't believe I feel hearty enough
to-day. Read the items first--we can bear the waiting."

"What waiting?" inquired Mr. Schofield.

"For the poem," replied Parker, grimly.

With a vague but not fleeting smile, Ross settled the sheets in order,
and exhibited tokens of that pleasant nevousness incident to appearing
before a critical audience, armed with literature whose merits should
delight them out of the critical attitude. "I run across a great scheme
down there," he volunteered amiabl