"Don't irritate you?" Bassett stared blankly. "Who the ..."

"No--it might cost you your job."

The editor laughed harshly. "Hell, you must want a story suppressed."

"What makes you think so?"

"They all begin by threatening to get my scalp."

"Well, that's a bum guess this time." Good drew his chair up beside the
desk and pushed a cleared place among the papers. "Now see here, Mr.
Bassett, I have something to tell you."

"It's about time you began telling it," said Bassett dryly.

"I had to get you in a receptive mood before I could begin. Now I'm
ready."

"Fire away." The editor lit his cigar and waved his hand resignedly.

"Quick is quick. To get to the point, this paper has changed hands."

The expression on Bassett's face changed immediately. "You mean--it's
sold?"

"Just so."

"Who got it--the Le Gore crowd?" It was Bassett's profession always to
be prepared for the unusual, but it was manifest from his knitted
eyebrows and his nervous drumming on the desk that he was astonished.

"No, Miss Judith Wynrod."

"The millionaire kid!" cried Bassett. "What the devil does she want a
newspaper for? Is she going to run it?"

"No," said Good calmly, "I am."

"_You?_ Who in thunder are _you_?"

Good leaned back and put his thumbs in his waistcoat. "I," he said
without smiling, "am the crafty bunco-steerer. With misguided confidence
the boss is going to let me run her paper for her. In future, my profane
friend, you're going to take your orders from me."

"Do you know anything about newspapering?"

"Quite a bit, yes."

Bassett rose and clasping his hands behind his back, strode rapidly back
and forth, without speaking, for several moments. Finally he stopped and
shifting his cigar savagely from one side of his mouth to the other,
stared vacantly into space.

"Well," he said slowly, "the first thing a new owner usually does is to
fire the staff. I suppose I might as well begin getting ready and
packing up my things. That's one of the beauties in this newspaper game.
There's no monotony in your job."

Good laughed cheerfully. "I wouldn't be in any hurry about it," he said;
"nobody's slated for the blue envelope yet."

"What's the policy going to be?" asked Bassett after a pause.

"None," said Good shortly.

"I don't get you."

"You will."

"The orders'll come from downstairs as usual, I suppose?"

Good betrayed himself for the first time during the interview. "No," he
cried, bringing hi