“Why, that criticism you wrote about the Black Patti. They’ve made all sorts of fun of it. The worst of it is that they’ve charged it all up to the old man.” I smiled a sickly smile. I felt as if I had committed some great crime. Why had I attempted to write anything “fine” anyhow? Why couldn’t I have been content and rested with a little praise? Had I no sense at all? Must I always be trying to do something great? Perhaps this would be the end of me. Hartung brought me the _Post-Dispatch_, and sorrowfully and with falling vitals I read it, my toes curling, my stomach seeming gradually to retire to my backbone. Why had I done it! As I was standing there, my eyes glued to the paper, near the door which looked into the main city room in which was Tobe scribbling dourly away, I heard and then saw McCullagh enter and walk up to the stout city editor. He had a copy of the selfsame _Post-Dispatch_ crumpled roughly in his hand, and on his face was gathered what seemed to me a dark scowl. “Did you see this, Mr. Mitchell?” I heard him say. Tobe looked up, then closely and respectfully at the paper. “Yes,” he said. “I don’t think a thing like that ought to appear in our paper. It’s a little bit too high-flown for our audience. Your reader should have modified it.” “I think so myself,” replied Tobe quietly. The editor walked out. Tobe waited for his footsteps to die away and then growled at Hartung: “Why the devil did you let that stuff go through? Haven’t I warned you against that sort of thing? Why can’t you watch out?” I could have fallen through the floor. I had a vision of Hartung burying his head in his desk, scared and mute. After the evening assignments had been given out and Tobe had gone to dinner, Hartung crept up to me. “Gee, the old man was as mad as the devil!” he began. “Tobe gave me hell. He won’t say anything to you maybe, but he’ll take it out on me. He’s a little afraid of your pull with the old man, but he gives me the devil. Can’t you look out for those things?” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXXI