Was I never to escape from the malice inspired by the envy my literary
talent aroused? I had certainly expected that a man of the famous
editor's reputation would be above such pettiness. I was too dismayed
and downcast by the meanness of human nature to speak.

Le ffacase snuffed again and looked malevolently at the wall. A framed
caricature of himself returned the stare. "Very well," he grudgingly
conceded at length, "youre on the grass anyway, so you might as well
take this on too. Leave you only twentytwo hours a day to sleep in. You,
Weener, are still on the payroll--at half the agreedupon figure."

I opened my mouth to protest, but he turned on me with a snarl; baring
yellow and twisted teeth, unpleasant to see. "Weener, you look like a
criminal type to me; Lombroso couldve used you for a model to advantage.
Have you a policerecord or have you so far evaded the law? Let me tell
you, the _Intelligencer_ is the evildoers' nemesis. Is your conscience
clear, your past unsullied as a virgin's bed, your every deed open to
search? Do you know what a penitentiary's like? Did you ever hear the
clang of a celldoor as the turnkey slammed it behind him and left you to
think and stew and weep in a silence accented and made more wretched by
a yellow electricbulb and the stink of corrosivesublimate? Back to the
cityroom, you dabbling booby, you precious simpleton, addlepated dunce,
and be thankful my boundless generosity permits you to draw a weekly
paycheck at all and doesnt condemn you to labor forever unrewarded in
the subterranean vaults where the old files are kept."

First Miss Francis and now Le ffacase. Were all these great
intelligences touched? Was the world piloted by unbalanced minds? It
seemed incredible, impossible it should be so, but two such similar
experiences in so short a time apparently supported this gloomy view.
Horrible, I thought as I preceded Gootes out of the maniac's office,
unbelievably horrible.

"Son," advised Gootes, "never argue with the chief. He has the makings
of a firstclass apoplexy--I hope. You just keep squawking to the
bookkeeping department and youll get further than coming up against the
Old Man. Now let's go out and look at nature in the raw."

"But my copy," I protested.

"Oh, that," he said airily, "I'll run that off when we come back.
Deadlines mean nothing to Jacson Gootes, the compositors' companion, the
proofreaders' pardner, the layoutman's love. Come, Senor Veener, we tak