"You're a traitor to the party," groaned the other, "but you only
wait----"
The editor smiled sadly. "Wait nothing. Don't threaten, man. Go home to
your wife. I'll give you three to one she'll be glad you are out of it."
"I'll give you three to one," said McCune, "that the White Caps will get
you if you stay in Carlow. You want to look out for yourself, I tell you,
my smart boy!"
"Good-day, Mr. McCune," was the answer. "Let me have your note of
withdrawal before you leave town this afternoon." The young man paused a
moment, then extended his hand, as he said: "Shake hands, won't you? I--I
haven't meant to be too hard on you. I hope things will seem easier and
gayer to you before long; and if--if anything should turn up that I can do
for you in a private way, I'll be very glad, you know. Good-by."
The sound of the "Herald's" victory went over the State. The paper came
out regularly. The townsfolk bought it and the farmers drove in for it.
Old subscribers came back. Old advertisers renewed. The "Herald" began to
sell in Amo, and Gaines County people subscribed. Carlow folk held up
their heads when journalism was mentioned. Presently the "Herald"
announced a news connection with Rouen, and with that, and the aid of
"patent insides," began an era of three issues a week, appearing on
Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. The Plattville Brass Band serenaded
the editor.
During the second month of the new regime of the "Herald," the working
force of the paper received an addition. One night the editor found some
barroom loafers tormenting a patriarchal old man who had a magnificent
head and a grand white beard. He had been thrown out of a saloon, and he
was drunk with the drunkenness of three weeks steady pouring. He propped
himself against a wall and reproved his tormentors in Latin. "I'm walking
your way, Mr. Fisbee," remarked the journalist, hooking his arm into the
old man's. "Suppose we leave our friends here and go home?"
Mr. Fisbee was the one inhabitant of the town who had an unknown past; no
one knew more about him than that he had been connected with a university
somewhere, and had travelled in unheard-of countries before he came to
Plattville. A glamour of romance was thrown about him by the gossips, to
whom he ever proved a fund of delightful speculation. There was a dark,
portentous secret in his life, it was agreed; an opinion not too well
confirmed by the old man's appearance. His fine eyes had a pathetic habit
of wandering to the horizon in a questioning fashion that had a queer sort
of hopelessness in it, as if his quest were one for the Holy Grail,
perhaps; and his expression was mild, vague, and sad. He had a look of
race and blood; and yet, at the first glance, one saw that he was lost in
dreams, and one guessed that the dreams would never be of great
practicability in their application. Some such impression of Fisbee was
probably what caused the editor of the "Herald" to nickname him (in his
own mind) "The White Knight," and to conceive a strong, if whimsical,
fancy for him.