The door shut and he returned to his contemplation of the picture. “You read me, my dear,” he said. “You were reading me all the time. You read me in the Eli Wade story. And in the golf story. And perhaps in others I did n’t realize. You knew I’d come eventually to do just such a wretched crawl as I did on the German school bill. You knew that you never could trust yourself to me. You’d seen me go back on myself. You knew that a man who would go back on himself would go back on you when the test came.” He mused bitterly. “As I would have done,” said Jeremy Robson. No man ever pronounced upon himself a harsher judgment. CHAPTER X BOSS,” said Andrew Galpin. He had come in and perched himself upon a corner of Jeremy’s desk, swinging his long legs. A folded copy of that day’s Guardian served him for a fan, which he plied languidly, for it was the early hot spell of June, 1914. The regard with which he favored his chief was both affectionate and quizzical. “Well?” queried Jeremy. “D’ you know we’re pretty near two years old?” “That’s right, Andy. We are.” “D’ you feel it?” “Yes, and a couple of hundred years on top of it.” “So bad as that! We’re some old for our age, I’ll admit. But I don’t see any signs of senile decay, yet.” “Oh, we can still stir our bones enough to get off the press on time.” “What do you think of this feller’s paper, anyway, Boss?” “What do _you?_” “Pretty well satisfied, thank you. We’ve got fourteen thousand circulation that you could n’t pry loose with a crow-bar.” “Could n’t we? I’m not going to try.” “Not going to? You _have_ tried. You’ve stepped on every cussed one of their cussed toes, one time or another. Dam’ fi don’t think you’ve got ’em so they _like_ it.” “Queer way they’ve got of showing it, then. Do you ever read the editorial correspondence?” “Oh, that’s all right!” The general manager waved such matters loftily away. “They quit the paper, sore. Then they get over it and come back. If they don’t, there’s plenty of others to take their places. Even the Dutchers”--this being, at the time, Mr. Galpin’s term indicative of that powerful and flourishing organization, the Deutscher Club--“have come around.” “Not all of them. Stockmuller is out still.” “He’s a stiff-neck. He’s the only one.” “Not the only advertiser. The Laundry Association have never got over Wong Kee, the yellow peril. The Emporium takes as little space as possible. And I don’t notice the P.-U. crowding any contracts on us, Andy.” “Verrall tells me they’re coming back. At least, they’re showing flirtatious signs.” “No! I wonder what kind of a bargain they’ll offer now.” “You ought to curb that mean, suspicious nature of yours, Boss,” reproved Galpin solemnly. “Now, _I_ set it down to force of habit on the P.-U.’s part. Something’s in the air. Therefore they begin to advertise. It’s the cuttle-fish principle. Only they use printer’s ink.” “What’s their little game?”