city exchanges, which was partly written and partly selected. Bartley came to the office rather late on Monday morning, bringing with him the papers from Saturday night's mail, which had lain unopened over Sunday, and went directly into his own room, without looking into the printing-office. He felt feverish and irritable, and he resolved to fill up with selections and let his editorial paragraphing go, or get Bird to do it. He was tired of the work, and sick of Equity; Marcia's face seemed to look sadly in upon his angry discontent, and he no longer wished to go to her for sympathy. His door opened, and, without glancing from the newspaper which he held up before him, he asked, “What is it, Bird? Do you want copy?” “Well, no, Mr. Hubbard,” answered Bird, “we have copy enough for the force we've got this morning.” “Why, what's up?” demanded Bartley, dropping his paper. “Lizzie Sawyer has sent word that she is sick, and we haven't heard or seen anything of Hannah Morrison.” “Confound the girls!” said Bartley, “there's always something the matter with them.” He rubbed his hand over his forehead, as if to rub out the dull pain there. “Well,” he said, “I must go to work myself, then.” He rose, and took hold of the lapels of his coat, to pull it off; but something in Bird's look arrested him. “What is it?” he asked. “Old Morrison was here, just before you came in, and said he wanted to see you. I think he was drunk,” said Bird, anxiously. “He said he was coming back again.” “All right; let him come,” replied Bartley. “This is a free country,--especially in Equity. I suppose he wants Hannah's wages raised, as usual. How much are we behind on the paper, Henry?” “We're not a great deal behind, Mr. Hubbard, if we were not so weak-handed.” “Perhaps we can get Hannah back, during the forenoon. At any rate, we can ask her honored parent when he comes.” Where Morrison got his liquor was a question that agitated Equity from time to time, and baffled the officer of the law empowered to see that no strong drink came into the town. Under conditions which made it impossible even in the logging-camps, and rendered the sale of spirits too precarious for the apothecary, who might be supposed to deal in them medicinally, Morrison never failed of his spree when the mysterious mechanism of his appetite enforced it. Probably it was some form of bedevilled cider that supplied the material of his debauch; but even cider was not easily to be had.