st," suddenly said young Theodore Fyne,
the baby of the board. "Why couldn't we persuade _you_ to take the
editorship?... Resign from the college, you know?"

"Now you _have_ said something!" cried Mr. Hopkins, enthusiastically.

Mr. West, by a word and a gesture, indicated that the suggestion was
preposterous and the conversation highly unwelcome.

But it was obvious that young Mr. Fyne's suggestion had caught the
directors at sight. Mr. Shorter and Mr. Porter affirmed that they had
not ventured to hope, etc., etc., but that if Mr. West could be induced
to consider the position, no choice would appear to them so
eminently--etc., etc. So said Mr. Boggs. So said Messrs. Hopkins, Fyne,
and Wilmerding.

Mr. Hickok, the director who resembled James E. Winter, looked out of
the window.

Mr. West, obviously restive under these tributes, was constrained to
state his position more fully. For more than one reason which should be
evident, he said, the mention of his name in this connection was most
embarrassing and distasteful to him. While thanking the directors
heartily for their evidences of good-will, he therefore begged them to
desist, and proceed with the discussion of other candidates.

"In that case," said Mr. Hickok, "it appears to be the reluctant duty of
the nominator to withdraw Mr. West's name."

But the brilliant young man's name, once thrown into the arena, could no
more be withdrawn than the fisherman of legend could restore the genie
to the bottle, or Pandora get her pretty gifts back into the box again.
There was the idea, fairly out and vastly alluring. The kindly directors
pressed it home. No doubt they, as well as Plonny Neal, appreciated that
Blaines College did not give the young man a fair field for his talents;
and certainly they knew with admiration the articles with which he
sometimes adorned the columns of their paper. Of all the directors, they
now pointed out, he had stood closest to Colonel Cowles, and was most
familiar with the traditions and policies of the _Post_. Their urgings
increased in force and persistence; perhaps they felt encouraged by a
certain want of finality in the young man's tone; and at length West was
compelled to make yet another statement.

He was, he explained, utterly disconcerted at the turn the discussion
had taken, and found the situation so embarrassing that he must ask his
friends, the directors, to extricate him from it at once. The editorship
of the _Post_ was