itorial in your paper which
amused--interested--me very much. It was headed 'Fudge,' The writer
plainly doesn't believe either in flying machines or in Democrats."

I heard Fergus bark behind me.

"He's going to thrash the writer," said Fergus.

Anthy glanced swiftly across at Fergus. It occurred to me in a flash:

"Why, _she_ wrote it!"

The sudden thought of the chin whiskers I had fastened upon the
imaginary writer was too much for me, and I laughed outright.

"Well," said I, "I shall not attempt any extreme measures until I try,
at least, to convert her."

I saw now that I had said something really amusing, for Fergus barked
twice behind me and Anthy broke into the liveliest laughter.

"You don't really think I wrote it?" she inquired in the roundest
astonishment, with one hand on her breast.

"I should certainly be very well repaid for my visit," said I, "if I
thought you did."

"Won't that amuse the Captain!" she exclaimed.

"So the Captain wrote it," I said, not knowing in the least who the
Captain was. "Tell me, has he chin whiskers?"

"Why?" asked Anthy.

"Well, when I read that editorial," I said, beginning again to enjoy the
give and take of the conversation, "I imagined the sort of man who must
have written it: chin whiskers, spectacles low on his nose, very severe
on all young things."

Anthy looked at Fergus.

"And does he by any chance"--I inquired in as serious a manner as I
could command, "I mean, of course, when he is angry--kick the cat?"

At this Fergus came down with a bang on all four legs of his chair, and
we all laughed together.

"Say," said Fergus, "I don't know who ye are, but ye're all right!"

And that was the way I came first to the printing-office.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER II

I STEP BOLDLY INTO THE STORY

It is one of the provoking, but interesting, things about life that it
will never stop a moment for admiration. No sooner do you pause to enjoy
it, or philosophize over it, or poetize about it, than it is up and
away, and the next time you glance around it is vanishing over the
hill--with the wind in its garments and the sun in its hair. If you do
not go on with life, it will go on without you. The only safe way, then,
to follow a story, I mean a story in real life, is to get right into it
yourself. How breathless, then, it becomes, how you long for--and yet
fear--the next chapter, how you love the heroine and hate the villain,
and never for an instan