is work. That is George all over. Whatever his assignment is, George
throws himself right into it, and thinks of nothing else until it is
finished. _Now_ then."

In that dingy, well-lighted room George Stratton sat busily pencilling
out the lines that were to appear in next morning's paper. He was
evidently very much engrossed in his task, as Speed had said. If he
had looked about him, which he did not, he would have said that he was
entirely alone. All at once his attention seemed to waver, and he passed
his hand over his brow, while perplexity came into his face. Then he
noticed that his pipe was out, and, knocking the ashes from it by
rapping the bowl on the side of the table, he filled it with an
absent-mindedness unusual with him. Again he turned to his writing, and
again he passed his hand over his brow. Suddenly, without any apparent
cause, he looked first to the right and then to the left of him. Once
more he tried to write, but, noticing his pipe was out, he struck
another match and nervously puffed away, until clouds of blue smoke rose
around him. There was a look of annoyance and perplexity in his face as
he bent resolutely to his writing. The door opened, and a man appeared
on the threshold.

"Anything more about the convention, George?" he said.

"Yes; I am just finishing this. Sort of pen pictures, you know."

"Perhaps you can let me have what you have done. I'll fix it up."

"All right," said Stratton, bunching up the manuscript in front of him,
and handing it to the city editor.

That functionary looked at the number of pages, and then at the writer.

"Much more of this, George?" he said. "We'll be a little short of room
in the morning, you know."

"Well," said the other, sitting back in his chair, "it is pretty good
stuff that. Folks always like the pen pictures of men engaged in the
skirmish better than the reports of what most of them say."

"Yes," said the city editor, "that's so."

"Still," said Stratton, "we could cut it off at the last page. Just let
me see the last two pages, will you?"

These were handed to him, and, running his eye through them, he drew his
knife across one of the pages, and put at the bottom the cabalistic mark
which indicated the end of the copy.

"There! I think I will let it go at that. Old Rickenbeck don't amount to
much, anyhow. We'll let him go."

"All right," said the city editor. "I think we won't want anything more
to-night."

[Illustration: "She's pr