question. Many of the
gentleman's hearers appeared to agree with him. They rose and fell upon
the bill, and massacred it by a vote of 54 to 32.

From "Sis" Hopkins, legislative reporter of the _Post_, the news went
skipping over the telephone wire to the editorial rooms, where the
assistant editor, who received it, remarked that he was sorry to hear
it. That done, the assistant hung up the receiver, and resumed work upon
an article entitled "A Constitution for Turkey?" He had hardly added a
sentence to this composition before West came in and, with a cheery word
of greeting, passed into his own office.

The assistant editor went on with his writing. He looked worn this
morning, Henry Surface's son, and not without reason. Half the night he
had shared the nurse's vigil at the bedside of Surface, who lay in
unbroken stupor. Half the night he had maintained an individual vigil in
his own room, lying flat on his back and staring wide-eyed into the
darkness. And on the heels of the day, there had come new trouble for
him, real trouble, though in the general cataclysm its full bearings and
farther reaches did not at once come home to him. Running professionally
through the _Post_ at breakfast-time, his eye, like Miss Weyland's, had
been suddenly riveted by that paper's remarks upon the reformatory....
What was the meaning of the staggering performance he had no idea, and
need not inquire. Its immediate effect upon his own career was at least
too plain for argument. His editorship and his reformatory had gone down
together.

Yet he was in no hurry now about following West into his sanctum. Of all
things Queed, as people called him, despised heroics and abhorred a
"scene." Nothing could be gained by a quarrel now; very earnestly he
desired the interview to be as matter-of-fact as possible. In half an
hour, when he had come to a convenient stopping-place, he opened the
door and stood uncomfortably before the young man he had so long
admired.

West, sitting behind his long table, skimming busily through the paper
with blue pencil and scissors, looked up with his agreeable smile.

"Well! What do you see that looks likely for--What's the matter? Are you
sick to-day?"

"No, I am quite well, thank you. I find very little in the news, though.
You notice that a digest of the railroad bill is given out?"

"Yes. You don't look a bit well, old fellow. You must take a holiday
after the legislature goes. Yes, I'm going to take the