“Can’t be done! I could lick the Kaiser and all his Botches single-handed. Boss, the luck has broke! The town is coming our way.” “How? Why? What’s happened?” “I’d like to tell you, but I have n’t got time. They’re waiting for me downstairs.” “Who?” “Advertisers. Waiting to break into The Guardian. They’re lined up in the hallways. I’ll have to issue rain-checks.” “Stop talking like a lunatic, Andy, and explain.” The demented manager perched upon the corner of the editorial table, with an effect of being poised for instant flight. “Don’t ask me to explain, because I can’t. I tell you the advertisers of this town have suddenly got a mania--and we’re the mania. It began two days ago and it’s been growing worse right along. I did n’t think I’d ever be able to break through to the office this morning. They waylaid me on the way down. I don’t know who began it. I think it was Stormont, of Stormont & Lehn. He fell out of a doorway on me, and when I got loose there was a thousand-dollar advertising contract stuck down my collar. Then old Pussy-foot Ellison came sobbing up the street--” “What the devil--” “Don’t interrupt me or I’ll bust! And never mind my metaphors. It comes easier that way. Well, he blubbered out his sweet message of intending to double his space in the paper instead of cutting us out; and before I’d got his tears fairly brushed off my shoulder, Vogt, the Botch, rushed in, threw his arms round my neck and tried to kiss me, and handed me an eight-hundred-dollar-space order in lieu of damages; and asked whether we would n’t like flowers sent round mornings, gratis! Boss, I can just see you writing an editorial with one of Vogt’s tea-roses stuck coyly behind your ear--” “Never mind my ear. Go on!” “How can I remember who mobbed me! I do recall that Arndt, of the furniture shop, knocked me down and dragged me into an alley; and when I came to there was a signed agreement to restore all the space they lifted from us, and twenty-five per cent over and above. And, by the way, I saw the Governor hiking into Bausch’s office and looking about as cheerful as a banshee with a bellyache. Oh, there’s big doings of some kind, you bet! All the morning the ’phone has been buzzing and--Who’s that having hysterics in the hall?” He threw open the door, and Mr. Adolph Ahrens, of The Great Northwestern Stores, bounded in, uttering a wild, low wail, the burden of which seemed to be something about a “misunderstanding.” He also mentioned the word “blackmail,” and hastily retracted it. He had always, he asserted passionately, been friendly to The Guardian. He admired it for its lofty courage, its unfailing fair-mindedness, its patriotism; and as an advertising medium he considered it without parallel or equal.