his columns, "of course
I shall be glad to have something from you."

"Why, my dear fellow, certainly! Hand me some copy-paper there, and go
right on with your work while I unbosom my pent-up Uticas."

He meditated a moment, wrote rapidly for half an hour, and rose with a
hurried glance at his watch.

"Here's a little squib about the college that may serve as a
space-filler. I must fly for an engagement. I'll try to come down
to-morrow afternoon anyway, and if you need anything to-night, 'phone
me. Delighted to help you out."

Queed picked up the scattered sheets and read them over carefully. He
found that Director West had written a very able defense, and
whole-hearted endorsement, of President West's position in the Blaines
College hazing affair.

The acting editor sat for some time in deep thought. Eighteen months'
increasing contact with Buck Klinker and other men of action had
somewhat tamed his soaring self-sufficiency. He was not nearly so sure
as he once was that he knew everything there was to know, and a little
more besides. West, personally, whom he saw often, he had gradually come
to admire with warmth. By slow degrees it came to him that the popular
young president had many qualities of a very desirable sort which he
himself lacked. West's opinion on a question of college discipline was
likely to be at least as sound as his own. Moreover, West was one of the
owners and managers of the _Post_.

Nevertheless, he, Queed, did not see how he could accept and print this
article.

It was the old-school Colonel's fundamental axiom, drilled into and
fully adopted by his assistant, that the editor must be personally
responsible for every word that appeared in his columns. Those columns,
to be kept pure, must represent nothing but the editor's personal views.
Therefore, on more than one occasion, the Colonel had refused
point-blank to prepare articles which his directors wished printed. He
always accompanied these refusals with his resignation, which the
directors invariably returned to him, thereby abandoning their point.
Queed was for the moment editor in the Colonel's stead. Over the
telephone, Colonel Cowles had instructed him, four days before, to
assume full responsibility, communicating with him or with the directors
if he was in doubt, but standing firmly on his own legs. As to where
those legs now twitched to lead him, the young man could have no doubt.
If he had a passion in his scientist's bosom,