table at one end of it was
laid with a snowy cloth and there was a fragrance of tea, and, amidst
various dainties, one caught a glimpse of cold chicken and lettuce
leaves. Fisbee stopped, dumfounded, but the foreman, after stammeringly
declining an invitation to partake, alleging that his own meal awaited,
sped down to the printing-room, and seized upon Bud Tipworthy with a
heavy hand.

"Where did all that come from, up there?"

"Leave go me! _What_ 'all that'?"

"All that tea and chicken and salad and wafers--all kinds of things;
sardines, for all I know!"

"They come in Briscoes' buckboard while you was gone. Briscoes sent 'em
in a basket; I took 'em up and she set the basket under the table. You'd
seen it if you'd 'a' looked. _Quit_ that!" And it was unjust to cuff the
perfectly innocent and mystified Bud, and worse not to tell him what the
punishment was for.

Before the day was over, system had been introduced, and the "Herald"
was running on it: and all that warm, rainy afternoon, the editor and
Fisbee worked in the editorial rooms, Parker and Bud and Mr. Schofield
(after his return with the items and a courteous message from Ephraim
Watts) bent over the forms downstairs, and Uncle Xenophon was cleaning
the store-room and scrubbing the floor.

An extraordinary number of errands took the various members of the
printing force up to see the editor-in-chief, literally to see the
editor-in-chief; it was hard to believe that the presence had not
flown--hard to keep believing, without the repeated testimony of sight,
that the dingy room upstairs was actually the setting for their jewel;
and a jewel they swore she was. The printers came down chuckling and
gurgling after each interview; it was partly the thought that she
belonged to the "Herald," _their_ paper. Once Ross, as he cut down one
of the temporarily distended advertisements, looked up and caught the
foreman giggling to himself.

"What in the name of common-sense you laughin' at, Cale?" he asked.

"What are _you_ laughing at?" rejoined the other.

"I dunno!"

The day wore on, wet and dreary outside, but all within the "Herald's"
bosom was snug and busy and murmurous with the healthy thrum of life
and prosperity renewed. Toward six o'clock, system accomplished, the new
guiding-spirit was deliberating on a policy as Harkless would conceive
a policy, were he there, when Minnie Briscoe ran joyously up the stairs,
plunged into the room, waterproofed and ra