me in private life, he totes me out in public
as HIS editor--the man who runs HIS paper! And has his name in print
as the proprietor, the only chance he'd ever get of being before the
public. And don't know the whole town is laughing at him!"

"That may be because they think HE writes some of the articles," I
suggested.

Again the insinuation glanced harmlessly from his vanity. "That
couldn't be, because I do all the work, and it ain't his style," he
said with naive discontent. "And it's always the highest style, done
to please him, though between you and me it's sorter castin' pearls
before swine--this 'Frisco editing--and the public would be just as
satisfied with anything I could rattle off that was peart and
sassy,--something spicy or personal. I'm willing to climb down and do
it, for there's nothin' stuck-up about me, you know; but that darned
fool Captain Jim has got the big head about the style of the paper, and
darned if I don't think he's afraid if there's a lettin' down, people
may think it's him! Ez if! Why, you know as well as me that there's a
sort of snap I could give these things that would show it was me and no
slouch did them, in a minute."

I had my doubts about the elegance or playfulness of Mr. Bassett's
trifling, but from some paragraphs that appeared in the next issue of
the "Guardian" I judged that he had won over Captain Jim--if indeed
that gentleman's alleged objections were not entirely the outcome of
Bassett's fancy. The social paragraphs themselves were clumsy and
vulgar. A dull-witted account of a select party at Parson Baxter's,
with a point-blank compliment to Polly Baxter his daughter, might have
made her pretty cheek burn but for her evident prepossession for the
meretricious scamp, its writer. But even this horse-play seemed more
natural than the utterly artificial editorials with their pinchbeck
glitter and cheap erudition; and thus far it appeared harmless.

I grieve to say that these appearances were deceptive. One afternoon,
as I was returning from a business visit to the outskirts of the
village, I was amazed on reentering the main street to find a crowd
collected around the "Guardian" office, gazing at the broken glass of
its windows and a quantity of type scattered on the ground. But my
attention was at that moment more urgently attracted by a similar group
around my own office, who, however, seemed more cautious, and were
holding timorously aloof from the entranc