g that now was the time, etc., and demanding in
a hundred forceful ways, how about it?

With cheerfulness and confidence had West intrusted these important
matters to his young assistant. Not only was Queed an acknowledged
authority on both taxation and penological science, but he had enjoyed
the advantage of writing articles on both themes under Colonel Cowles's
personal direction. The Colonel's bones were dust, his pen was rust, his
soul was with the saints, we trust; but his gallant spirit went marching
on. He towered out of memory a demigod, and what he said and did in his
lifetime had become as the law of the Medes and Persians now.

But there was never any dispute about the division of editorial honors
on the _Post_, anyway. The two young men, in fact, were so different in
every way that their relations were a model of mutual satisfaction.
Never once did Queed's popular chief seek to ride over his valued
helper, or deny him his full share of opportunity in the department. If
anything, indeed, he leaned quite the other way. For West lacked the
plodder's faculty for indefatigable application. Like some rare and
splendid bird, if he was kept too closely in captivity, his spirit
sickened and died.

It is time to admit frankly that West, upon closer contact with
newspaper work, had been somewhat disillusioned, and who that knows,
will be surprised at that? To begin with, he had been used to much
freedom, and his new duties were extremely confining. They began soon
after breakfast, and no man could say at what hour they would end. The
night work, in especial, he abhorred. It interfered with much more
amusing things that had hitherto beguiled his evenings, and it also
conflicted with sleep, of which he required a good deal. There was, too,
a great amount of necessary but most irksome drudgery connected with his
editorial labors. Because the _Post_ was a leader of public thought in
the State, and as such enjoyed a national standing, West found it
necessary to read a vast number of papers, to keep up with what was
going on. He was also forced to write many perfunctory articles on
subjects which did not interest him in the least, and about which, to
tell the truth, he knew very little. There were also a great many
letters either to be answered, or to be prepared for publication in the
People's Forum column, and these letters were commonly written by dull
asses who had no idea what they were talking about. Prosy people wer