night.

At morning there was another spread in the newspapers. The wonder of a
few days had spent its force, and the Witherspoon sensation was done.

CHAPTER XII.

A DEMOCRACY.

The _Star_ was printed in an old building where more than one
newspaper had failed. The interior of the place was so comfortless in
arrangement, so subject to unaccountable drafts of cold air in winter
and breaths of hot oppression in summer, that it must have been built
especially for a newspaper office. Henry found that the working force
consisted mainly of a few young reporters and a large force of
editorial writers. The weakness of nearly every newspaper is its
editorial page, and especially so when the paper is owned by a
politician. The new manager straightway began a reorganization. It was
an easy matter to form an efficient staff, for in every city some of
the best newspaper men are out of employment--the bright and uncertain
writers who have been shoved aside by trustworthy plodders. He did not
begin as one who knows it all, but he sought the co-operation of
practical men. The very man who knew that the paper could not do
without him was told that his services were no longer needed. In his
day he had spread many an acre of platitudes; he had hammered the
tariff mummy, and at every lick he had knocked out the black dust; he
had snorted loud in controversy, and was arrogant in the certainty
that his blowhard sentence was the frosty air of satire. He was the
representative of a class. To him all clearness of expression was
shallowness of thought, and brightness was the essence of frivolity.
He soon found another place, for some of the Chicago newspapers still
set a premium upon windy dullness.

Among the writers whom Henry decided to retain was Laura Drury. She
wrote book reviews and scraps which were supposed to be of interest to
women. Her room opened into Henry's, and through a door which was
never shut he could see her at work. The brightness and the modesty of
her face attracted him. She could not have been more than twenty years
of age.

"Have you been long in newspaper work?" he asked, when she had come in
to submit something to him.

"Only a short time," she answered, and returned at once to her desk.
Henry looked at her as she proceeded with her work. Her presence
seemed to refine the entire office. He fancied that her hair made the
room brighter. His curiosity was awakened by one touch of her
presence. He sough