“I stick,” plagiarized Jeremy. Andrew Galpin’s relief when the decision was reported to him was almost pathetic. “Boss, if you’d laid down on this I was about through with human nature,” was his comment. “And now, what’s to come?” Jeremy’s lined face puckered into a cherubic smile. “The last trench, and a damned good fight in it,” he said softly. CHAPTER XIV MR. BURTON HIGMAN mounted the stairs of The Guardian office, dressed in his best suit of clothes. A powerfully inferential mind might have derived from his proud and important bearing that he had matters of moment on his mind; might further have deduced that he had been on a railway journey, from the presence of a cinder in his ear. He wore the air and expression, sanctified, as it were, all but martyr-like, as of one who, if he had not already died for his country, was at least prepared to. For young Mr. Higman had been performing that miracle, forever dear to dreaming boyhood; he had been saving the world. Such, at all events, was his own glorious interpretation of his enterprise. The clock, pointing an accusing digit at V, was the only sign of life in the inner den. Buddy went to Mr. Galpin’s office. Empty also. So there was none to apprise him of the Boss’s final determination. A group of printers, scrubbed and clean, clumped down the stairs, still discussing the exciting rumor that somebody had bought out Robson; for every press-room is a clearing-house of gossip, technical and other. “Hey, Buddy,” one of them hailed. “Got a new job yet?” “Good-bye the easy snap,” added another. “The old Guardian’s sold again.” “Much you know about it,” retorted Buddy, stoutly and scornfully. But the statement struck a chill to his ardent soul. Could it be that he was too late? Surely the deal could n’t have been fixed up overnight! On Mr. Higman’s official desk was a heap of mail which, in size, would have done credit to a correspondence school. It was Mr. Higman’s present professional duty, interrupted by his brief leave of absence, to sift out the anonymous communications, with special reference to those of a spicy and murderous character, and deliver them to his chief. To Jeremy’s journalistic instinct, it had occurred as a sprightly idea to make up a special page for publication of these epistolary efforts. It would be interesting to his readers, and would serve further to enlighten them as to the extent and virulence of local German sentiment. Perhaps, too, it would check the flood. So Mr. Higman sorted and divided and contributed marginal marks, and finally delivered a large packet upon the editorial desk for the Boss’s professional consideration, when he should return that evening, which, his young aide felt sure he would do, even though it was Saturday. Few, indeed, were the evenings that did not see a light in the den, close up to midnight.