umn invariably
contained something of a complimentary character, the one so adroitly
offsetting the other that Mr. Crow never knew whether he was "afoot or
horseback," to quote him in his perplexity.

Harry Squires had worked on a New York morning paper in his early days.
His health failing him, he was compelled to abandon what might have
become a really brilliant career as a journalist. Lean, sick and
disheartened, he came to Bramble County to spend the winter with an old
aunt, who lived among the pine-covered hills above the village of
Tinkletown. That was twenty years ago. For nineteen years he had filled
the high-sounding post of city editor on the _Banner_. He always
maintained that the most excruciating thing he had ever written was the
line at the top of the first column of the so-called editorial page,
which said: "City Editor--Harry Sylvester Squires." Nothing, he claimed,
could be more provocative of hilarity than that.

In his capacity as city editor, he wrote advertisements, personals,
editorials, news-items, death-notices, locals and practically everything
else in the paper except the poetry sent in by Miss Sue Becker. He even
wrote the cable and telegraph matter, always ascribing it to a "Special
Correspondent of the _Banner_." In addition to all this, he "made-up"
the forms, corrected proof, wrote "heads," stood over the boy who ran
the press and stood over him when he wasn't running the press, took all
the blame and none of the credit for things that appeared in the paper,
and once a week accepted currency to the amount of fifteen dollars as an
honorarium.

Regarding himself as permanently buried in this out-of-the-way spot on
the earth's surface, he had the grim humour to write his own "obituary"
and publish it in the columns of the _Banner_. He began it by saying
that he was going to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth about the "deceased." He had written hundreds of obituaries during
his career as city editor, he said, and not once before had he been at
liberty to tell the truth. In view of the fact that he had no relations
to stop their subscriptions to the paper, he felt that for once in his
life he could take advantage of an opportunity to write exactly as he
felt about the deceased.

He left out such phrases as "highly esteemed citizen," "nobility of
character," "loss to the community," "soul of integrity" and other stock
expressions. At the end he begged to inform his fr