f I can find
any other place to go."

"Plenty of places," affirmed Edmonds positively.

"Yes; but will they give me the chance I want?"

"Not unless you make it for yourself. But let's canvass 'em. You want a
morning paper."

"Yes. Not enough salary in the evening field."

"Well: you've thought of The Sphere first, I suppose."

"Naturally. I like their editorial policy. Their news policy makes me
seasick."

"I'm not so strong for the editorials. They're always for reform and
never for progress."

"Ah, but that's epigram."

"It's true, nevertheless. The Sphere is always tiptoeing up to the edge
of some decisive policy, and then running back in alarm. What of The
Observer? They're looking for new blood."

"The Observer! O Lord! Preaches the eternal banalities and believes them
the eternal verities."

"Epigram, yourself," grinned Edmonds. "Well, The Monitor?"

"The three-card Monitor, and marked cards at that."

"Yes; you'd have to watch the play. The Graphic then?"

"Nothing but an ornamental ghost. The ghost of a once handsomely kept
lady. I don't aspire to write daily epitaphs."

"And The Messenger I suppose you wouldn't even call a kept lady. Too
common. Babylonian stuff. But The Express is respectable enough for
anybody."

"And conscious of it in every issue. One long and pious scold, after a
high-minded, bad-tempered formula of its own."

"Then I'll give you a motto for your Ledger." Edmonds puffed it out
enjoyably,--decorated with bluish and delicate whorls. "'_Meliora video
proboque, deleriora sequor_.'"

"No; I won't have that. The last part will do; we do follow the worser
way; but if we see the better, we don't approve it. We don't even
recognize it as the better. We're honestly convinced in our advocacy of
the devil."

"I don't know that we're honestly convinced of anything on The Courier,
except of the desirability of keeping friendly with everybody. But such
as we are, we'd grab at you."

"No; thanks, Pop. You yourself are enough in the troubled-water duckling
line for one old hen like The Courier."

"Then there remains only The Patriot, friend of the Pee-pul."

"Skimmed scum," was Banneker's prompt definition. "And nothing in the
soup underneath."

Ernst, the waiter, scuttled across the floor below, and disappeared back
of the L-angle a few feet away.

"Somebody's dining there," remarked Edmonds, "while we've been stripping
the character off every paper in the field."

"May