g. In the emblazoned speakers' stand the Westville
Brass Band, in their new uniforms, glittering like so many grand
marshals of the empire, will trumpet forth triumphant music fit to
burst; and aloft from this breeze-fluttered throne of oratory----"

"Go to hell!" interrupted Bruce, eyes still racing through his copy.

"And down from this breeze-fluttered throne of oratory," continued
Billy, with a rising quaver in his voice, "Mr. Harrison Blake,
Westville's favourite son; the Reverend Doctor Sherman, president of
the Voters' Union, and the Honourable Hiram Cogshell, Calloway
County's able-bodiest orator, will pour forth prodigal and perfervid
eloquence upon the populace below. And Dr. David West, he who has
directed this magnificent work from its birth unto the present, he who
has laid upon the sacred altar of his city's welfare a matchless
devotion and a lifetime's store of scientific knowledge, he who----"

"See here, young fellow!" The editor slammed down the last sheet of
his revised story, and turned upon his assistant a square, bony,
aggressive face that gave a sense of having been modelled by a
clinched fist, and of still glowering at the blow. He had gray eyes
that gleamed dogmatically from behind thick glasses, and hair that
brush could not subdue. "See here, Billy Harper, will you please go to
hell!"

"Sure; follow you anywhere, Arn," returned Billy pleasantly, holding
out his cigarette case.

"You little Chicago alley cat, you!" growled Bruce. He took a
cigarette, broke it open and poured the tobacco into a black pipe,
which he lit. "Well--turn up anything?"

"Governor can't come," replied the reporter, lighting a fresh
cigarette.

"Hard luck. But we'll have the crowd anyhow. Blake tell you anything
else?"

"He didn't tell me that. His stenographer did; she'd opened the
Governor's telegram. Blake's in Indianapolis to-day--looking after his
chances for the Senate, I suppose."

"See Doctor West?"

"Went to his house first. But as usual he wouldn't say a thing. That
old boy is certainly the mildest mannered hero of the day I ever went
up against. The way he does dodge the spot-light!--it's enough to make
one of your prima donna politicians die of heart failure. To do a
great piece of work, and then be as modest about it as he is--well,
Arn, I sure am for that old doc!"

"Huh!" grunted the editor.

"When it comes time to hang the laurel wreath upon his brow to-morrow
I'll bet you and your spavin