ked him in her way, though at times she was severe with him.

"If you mean a big street," grumbled Tommy, who was going over proofs,
"why not say a big street? Why must you always call it a 'main artery'?"

"I am sorry," apologised Danvers. "It is not my own idea. You told me
to study the higher-class journals."

"I didn't tell you to select and follow all their faults. Here it is
again. Your crowd is always a 'hydra-headed monster'; your tea 'the cup
that cheers but not inebriates.'"

"I am afraid I am a deal of trouble to you," suggested the staff.

"I am afraid you are," agreed the sub-editor.

"Don't give me up," pleaded the staff. "I misunderstood you, that is
all. I will write English for the future."

"Shall be glad if you will," growled the sub-editor.

Dick Danvers rose. "I am so anxious not to get what you call 'the sack'
from here."

The sub-editor, mollified, thought the staff need be under no
apprehension, provided it showed itself teachable.

"I have been rather a worthless fellow, Miss Hope," confessed Dick
Danvers. "I was beginning to despair of myself till I came across you
and your father. The atmosphere here--I don't mean the material
atmosphere of Crane Court--is so invigorating: its simplicity, its
sincerity. I used to have ideals. I tried to stifle them. There is a
set that sneers at all that sort of thing. Now I see that they are good.
You will help me?"

Every woman is a mother. Tommy felt for the moment that she wanted to
take this big boy on her knee and talk to him for his good. He was only
an overgrown lad. But so exceedingly overgrown! Tommy had to content
herself with holding out her hand. Dick Danvers grasped it tightly.

Clodd was the only one who did not approve of him.

"How did you get hold of him?" asked Clodd one afternoon, he and Peter
alone in the office.

"He came. He came in the usual way," explained Peter.

"What do you know about him?"

"Nothing. What is there to know? One doesn't ask for a character with a
journalist."

"No, I suppose that wouldn't work. Found out anything about him since?"

"Nothing against him. Why so suspicious of everybody?"

"Because you are just a woolly lamb and want a dog to look after you. Who
is he? On a first night he gives away his stall and sneaks into the pit.
When you send him to a picture-gallery, he dodges the private view and
goes on the first shilling day. If an invitation comes to a public
d