ditor. 'Run across to the other
shop yourself, and see if they've got a copy of _A Question of
Cubits_--yes, that's it, _A Question of Cubits_--and do me fifteen
inches on it at once. I've lost Clackmannan's "copy."' (The 'other shop'
was a wing occupied by a separate journal belonging to the proprietors
of the _Tribune_.)

'What, that thing!' exclaimed Mr. Heeley. 'Won't it do to-morrow? You
know I hate messing my hands with that sort of piffle.'

'No, it won't do to-morrow. I met Onions Winter at dinner on Saturday
night, and I told him I'd review it on the day of publication. And when
I promise a thing I promise it. Cut, my son! And I say'--the editor
recalled Mr. Heeley, who was gloomily departing--'We're under no
obligations to anyone. Write what you think, but, all the same, no
antics, no spleen. You've got to learn yet that that isn't our
speciality. You're not on the _Whitehall_ now.'

'Oh, all right, chief--all right!' Mr. Heeley concurred.

Five minutes later Mr. Heeley entered what he called his private
boudoir, bearing a satinesque volume.

'Here, boys,' he cried to two other young men who were already there,
smoking clay pipes--'here's a lark! The chief wants fifteen inches on
this charming and pathetic art-work as quick as you can. And no antics,
he says. Here, Jack, here's fifty pages for you'--Mr. Heeley ripped the
beautiful inoffensive volume ruthlessly in pieces--and here's fifty for
you, Clementina. Tell me your parts of the plot I'll deal with the first
fifty my noble self.'

Presently, after laughter, snipping out of pages with scissors, and some
unseemly language, Mr. Heeley began to write.

'Oh, he's shot up to six foot eight!' exclaimed Jack, interrupting the
scribe.

'Snow!' observed the bearded man styled Clementina. 'He dies in the
snow. Listen.' He read a passage from Henry's final scene, ending with
'His spirit had passed.' 'Chuck me the scissors, Jack.'

Mr. Heeley paused, looked up, and then drew his pen through what he had
written.

'I say, boys,'he almost whispered, 'I'll praise it, eh? I'll take it
seriously. It'll be simply delicious.'

'What about the chief?'

'Oh, the chief won't notice it! It'll be just for us three, and a few at
the club.'

Then there was hard scribbling, and pasting of extracts into blank
spaces, and more laughter.

'"If an advance were possible,"' Clementina read, over Mr. Heeley's
shoulder. 'You'll give the show away, you fool!'

'No, I shan