FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159  
160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   >>   >|  
iege Miss Tibbs, all of whose recent buds of rhyme had been hot-housed into inky blossom during the week, and after a long absence the youth returned with a somewhat abrupt quatrain, entitled "The Parisians of Old," which she had produced while he waited--only four lines, according to the measure they meted, which was not regardful of art--less than a drop in the bucket, or, to preserve the figure, a single posy where they needed a bouquet. Bud went down the rickety outside stairs, and sat on the lowest step, whistling "Wait till the Clouds Roll by, Jenny"; Ross Schofield descended to set up the quatrain, and Fisbee and Parker were left to silence and troubled meditation. They were seated on opposite sides of Harkless's desk. Sheets of blank scratch-paper lay before them, and they relaxed not their knit brows. Now and then, one of them, after gazing vacantly about the room for ten or fifteen minutes, would attack the sheet before him with fiercest energy; then the energy would taper off, and the paragraph halt, the writer peruse it dubiously, then angrily tear off the sheet and hurl it to the floor. All around them lay these snowballs of defeated journalism. Mr. Parker was a long, loose, gaunt gentleman, with a peremptory forehead and a capable jaw, but on the present occasion his capability was baffled and swamped in the attempt to steer the craft of his talent up an unaccustomed channel without a pilot. "I don't see as it's any use, Fisbee," he said, morosely, after a series of efforts that littered the floor in every direction. "I'm a born compositor, and I can't shift my trade. I stood the pace fairly for a week, but I'll have to give up; I'm run plumb dry. I only hope they won't show him our Saturday with your three columns of 'A Word of the Lotus Motive,' reprinted from February. I begin to sympathize with the boss, because I know what he felt when I ballyragged him for copy. Yes, sir, I know how it is to be an editor in a dead town now." "We must remember, too," said his companion, thoughtfully, "there is the Thursday issue of this week to be prepared, almost at once." "_Don't_! Please don't mention that, Fisbee!" Parker tilted far back in his chair with his feet anchored under the desk, preserving a precarious balance. "I ain't as grateful for my promotion to joint Editor-in-Chief as I might be. I'm a middling poor man for the hour, I guess," he remarked, painfully following the peregrinations of a fly o
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159  
160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Parker
 

Fisbee

 

energy

 

quatrain

 

unaccustomed

 
columns
 
channel
 

swamped

 
attempt
 

Saturday


talent

 

morosely

 
compositor
 

series

 
efforts
 

littered

 
direction
 
fairly
 

anchored

 

preserving


precarious

 

balance

 

Please

 

mention

 

tilted

 

grateful

 

promotion

 

painfully

 

remarked

 

peregrinations


Editor

 
middling
 

baffled

 

ballyragged

 

reprinted

 
Motive
 

February

 
sympathize
 

editor

 
thoughtfully

Thursday
 

prepared

 
companion
 
remember
 

preserve

 

bucket

 
figure
 

single

 
measure
 

regardful