rottenness of a paper run by my church-going reformer with the business
standards?"

A call from the business office took Hal away. At once Ellis turned to
the older man.

"Are you going to run the paper, Doc?"

"No: no, my boy. Hal owns it, on his own money."

"Because if you are, I quit."

"That's no way to talk," said the magnate, aggrieved. "There isn't a man
in Worthington treats his employees better or gets along with 'em
smoother than me."

"That's right, too, I guess. Only I don't happen to want to be your
employee."

"You're frank, at least, Mr. Ellis."

"Why not? I've laid my cards on the table. You know me for what I am, a
disgruntled dreamer. I know you for what you are, a hard-headed business
man. We don't have to quarrel about it. Tell you what I'll do: I'll
match you, horse-and-horse, for the soul of your boy."

"You're a queer Dick, Ellis."

"Don't want to match? Then I suppose I've got to fight you for him,"
sighed the editor.

The big man laughed whole-heartedly. "Not a chance, my friend! Not a
chance on earth. I don't believe even a woman could come between Hal
and me, let alone a man."

"_Or_ a principle?"

"Ah--ah! Dealing in abstractions again. Look out for this fellow,
Boyee," he called jovially as Hal came back to his desk. "He'll make
your paper the official organ of the Muckrakers' Union."

"I'll watch him," promised Hal. "Meantime I'll take your advice about my
speech, Mac, and blue-pencil the how-to-be-good stuff."

"Now you're talking! I'll tell you, Boss: why not get some of the
fellows to speak up. You might learn a few things about your own paper
that would interest you."

"Good idea! But, Mac, I wish you wouldn't call me 'Boss.' It makes me
feel absurdly young."

"All right, Hal," returned Ellis, with a grin. "But you've still got
some youngness to overcome, you know."

An hour later, looking down the long luncheon table, the editor-owner
felt his own inexperience more poignantly. With a very few exceptions,
these men, his employees, were his seniors in years. More than that, he
thought to see in the faces an air of capability, of assurance, of
preparedness, a sort of work-worthiness like the seaworthiness of a
vessel which has passed the high test of wind and wave. And to him,
untried, unformed, ignorant, the light amateur, all this human mechanism
must look for guidance. Humility clouded him at the recollection of the
spirit in which he had taken on the respons