On Monday morning three men sat in council in the "Herald" office; that
is, if staring out of dingy windows in a demented silence may be called
sitting in council; that was what Mr. Fisbee and Parker and Ross Schofield
were doing. By almost desperate exertions, these three and Bud Tipworthy
had managed to place before the public the issues of the paper for the
previous week, unaided by their chief, or, rather, aided by long accounts
of his condition and the manner of his mishap; and, in truth, three copies
were at that moment in the possession of Dr. Gay, accompanied by a note
from Parker warning the surgeon to exhibit them to his patient only as a
last resort, as the foreman feared the perusal of them might cause a
relapse.
By indiscriminate turns, acting as editors, reporters, and typesetters--
and particularly space-writers--the three men had worried out three
issues, and part of the fourth (to appear the next morning) was set up;
but they had come to the end of their string, and there were various
horrid gaps yet to fill in spite of a too generous spreading of
advertisements. Bud Tipworthy had been sent out to besiege Miss Tibbs, all
of whose recent buds of rhyme had been hot-housed into inky blossom during
the week, and after a long absence the youth returned with a somewhat
abrupt quatrain, entitled "The Parisians of Old," which she had produced
while he waited--only four lines, according to the measure they meted,
which was not regardful of art--less than a drop in the bucket, or, to
preserve the figure, a single posy where they needed a bouquet. Bud went
down the rickety outside stairs, and sat on the lowest step, whistling
"Wait till the Clouds Roll by, Jenny"; Ross Schofield descended to set up
the quatrain, and Fisbee and Parker were left to silence and troubled
meditation.
They were seated on opposite sides of Harkless's desk. Sheets of blank
scratch-paper lay before them, and they relaxed not their knit brows. Now
and then, one of them, after gazing vacantly about the room for ten or
fifteen minutes, would attack the sheet before him with fiercest energy;
then the energy would taper off, and the paragraph halt, the writer peruse
it dubiously, then angrily tear off the sheet and hurl it to the floor.
All around them lay these snowballs of defeated journalism.
Mr. Parker was a long, loose, gaunt gentleman, with a peremptory forehead
and a capable jaw, but on the present occasion his capability was baffled
and swamped in the attempt to steer the craft of his talent up an
unaccustomed channel without a pilot. "I don't see as it's any use,
Fisbee," he said, morosely, after a series of efforts that littered the
floor in every direction. "I'm a born compositor, and I can't shift my
trade. I stood the pace fairly for a week, but I'll have to give up; I'm
run plumb dry. I only hope they won't show him our Saturday with your
three columns of 'A Word of the Lotus Motive,' reprinted from February.
I begin to sympathize with the boss, because I know what he felt when I
ballyragged him for copy. Yes, sir, I know how it is to be an editor in a
dead town now."