“Why, I have not been very well,” said Witherby, getting into his chair, and taking up a paper-weight to help him in talk. “The fact is, I find that I have been working too hard. I have undertaken to manage the editorial department of the Events in addition to looking after its business, and the care has been too great. It has told upon me. I flatter myself that I have not allowed either department to suffer--” He referred this point so directly to him, that Bartley made a murmur of assent, and Witherby resumed. “But the care has told upon me. I am not so well as I could wish. I need rest, and I need help,” he added. Bartley had by this time made up his mind that, if Witherby had anything to say to him, he should say it unaided. Witherby put down the paper-weight, and gave his attention for a moment to a paper-cutter. “I don't know whether you have heard that Mr. Clayton is going to leave us?” “No,” Bartley said, “I hadn't heard that.” “Yes, he is going to leave us. Mr. Clayton and I have not agreed upon some points, and we have both judged it best that we should part.” Witherby paused again, and changed the positions of his inkstand and mucilage-bottle. “Mr. Clayton has failed me, as I may say, at the last moment, and we have been compelled to part. I found Mr. Clayton--unpractical.” He looked again at Bartley, who said, “Yes?” “Yes. I found Mr. Clayton so much at variance in his views with--with my own views--that I could do nothing with him. He has used language to me which I am sure he will regret. But that is neither here nor there; he is going. I have had my eye on you, Mr. Hubbard, ever since you came to Boston, and have watched your career with interest. But I thought of Mr. Clayton, in the first instance, because he was already attached to the Events, and I wished to promote him. Office during good behavior, and promotion in the direct line: I'm _that_ much of a civil-service reformer,” said Witherby. “Certainly,” said Bartley. “But of course my idea in starting the Events was to make money.” “Of course.” “I hold that the first duty of a public journal is to make money for the owner; all the rest follows naturally.” “You're quite right, Mr. Witherby,” said Bartley. “Unless it makes money, there can be no enterprise about it, no independence,--nothing. That was the way I did with my little paper down in Maine. The first thing--I told the committee when I took hold of the paper--is to keep it from losing money; the next is to make money with it. First peaceable, then pure: that's what I told them.”