in the mischief are you doing up there?"

"I'm--I'm--transacting some important business--with the Department,"
said Mr. Surface, and gave Sharlee's hands a desperate squeeze. "But
my--"

"Well, we're transacting some important business down here. Never should
have found you but for Mr. Dayne's happening along. Did you know that
West had resigned?"

"No, has he? But I started--"

"Peace to his ashes. De mortuis nil nisi bonum. The directors are
meeting now to elect his successor. Only one name has been mentioned.
There's only one editor we'll hear of for the paper. Won't you come back
to us, my boy?"

The young man cleared his throat. "Come? I'd--think it the greatest
honor--there's nothing I'd rather have. You are all too--too kind to
me--I can't tell you--but--"

"Oh, no buts! But us no buts now! I'll go tell them--"

"No--wait," called the young man, hastily. "If I come, I don't come as
Queed, you know. My name is Henry G. Surface. That may make a
difference--"

"Come as Beelzebub!" said the old man, testily. "We've had enough of
hiring a _name_ for the _Post_. This time we're after a man, and by the
Lord, we've got one!"

Henry Surface turned away from the telephone, struggling with less than
his usual success to show an unmoved face.

"You--know?"

She nodded: in her blue-spar eyes, there was the look of a winged
victory. "That was the little secret--don't you think it was a nice one?
It is your magnificent boast come true.... And you don't even say 'I
told you so'!"

He looked past her out into the park. Over the budding trees, already
bursting and spreading their fans of green, far off over the jagged
stretch of roofs, his gaze sought the battered gray _Post_ building and
the row of windows behind which he had so often sat and worked. A mist
came before his eyes; the trees curveted and swam; and his visible world
swung upside down and went out in a singing and spark-shot blackness.

She came to his side again: in silence slipped her hand into his; and
following both his look and his thought, she felt her own eyes smart
with a sudden bright dimness.

"This is the best city in the world," said Henry Surface. "The kindest
people--the _kindest people_--"

"Yes, little Doctor."

He turned abruptly and caught her to him again; and now, hearing even
above the hammering of his own blood the wild fluttering of her heart
against his, his tongue unlocked and he began to speak his heart. It was
not spe