asly
accessible in ferocious moments when he indulged himself in the felicity
of slaughtering the roaches with which the place swarmed. He gave Dan a
limp fat hand, and cleared a chair of exchanges with one foot, which he
thereupon laboriously restored to its accustomed place on the desk.

"So you're from the 'Courier'? Well, sir, you may tell your managing
editor for me that if he doesn't print more of my stuff he can get
somebody else on the job here."

Dan soothed Mr. Pettit's feelings as best he could; he confessed that
his own best work was mercilessly cut; and that, after all, the editors
of city newspapers were poor judges of the essential character of news.
When Pettit's good humor had been restored, Dan broached the nature of
his errand. As he mentioned Morton Bassett's name the huge editor's face
grew blank for a moment; then he was shaken with mirth that passed from
faint quivers until his whole frame was convulsed. His rickety chair
trembled and rattled ominously. It was noiseless laughter so far as any
vocal manifestations were concerned; but it shook the gigantic editor as
though he were a mould of jelly. He closed his eyes, but otherwise his
fat face was expressionless.

"Goin' to write Mort up, are you? Well, by gum! I've been readin' those
pieces in the 'Courier.' Your work? Good writin'; mighty interestin'
readin', as old Uncle Horace Greeley used to say. I guess you carry the
whitewash brush along with you in your pilgrimages. You certainly did
give Bill Ragsdale a clean bill o' health. That must have tickled the
folks in Tecumseh County. Know Ragsdale? I've set with Bill in the lower
house three sessions, and I come pretty near knowin' him. I don't say
that Bill is crooked; but I suspect that if Bill's moral nature could
be dug out and exposed to view it would be spiral like a bedspring; just
about. It's an awful load on the Republican Party in this state, having
to carry Bill Ragsdale. O Lord!"

He pursed his fat lips, and his eyes took on a far-away expression, as
though some profound utterance had diverted his thoughts to remote
realms of reverie. "So you're goin' to write Mort up; well, my God!"

The exact relevance of this was not apparent. Harwood had assumed on
general principles that the Honorable Isaac Pettit, of the "Fraser
County Democrat," was an humble and obedient servant of the Honorable
Morton Bassett, and would cringe at the mention of his name. To be sure,
Mr. Pettit had said n