Jimmy was beginning to acquire a reputation as a joker. People refused to believe that such things just happened. They did not happen before Mr. James Myers came to the paper--why should they begin with his coming and continue during his engagement? Thus reasoned the comforters of the Gilseys, and those interested in our downfall. The next day the _Statesman_ wrote a burning editorial denouncing us "for an utter lack of all sense of common decency" that permitted us "to violate the sacredest feeling known to the human heart for the sake of getting a ribald laugh from the unthinking." We were two weeks explaining that the error was not the boy's fault. People assumed that the mistake could not have occurred in any well-regulated printing office, and it didn't seem probable that it could occur--yet there it was. But Jimmy wasn't to blame. He suffered more than we did--more than the bereaved family did. He went unshaven and forgot to trim his cuffs or turn his collar. He hated to go on the streets for news, and covered with the office telephone as much of his beat as possible. The summer wore away and the dog days came. The Democratic State campaign was about to open in our town, and orators and statesmen assembled from all over the Missouri valley. There was a lack of flags at the dry-goods stores. The Fourth of July celebration had taken all the stock. The only materials available were some red bunting, some white bunting, and some blue bunting with stars dotted upon it. With this bunting the Committee on Reception covered the speakers' stand, wrapping the canopy under which the orators stood in the solid colours and the star-spangled blue. It was beautiful to see, and the pride of the window-dresser of the Golden Eagle Clothing Store. But the old soldiers who walked by nudged one another and smiled. About noon of the day of the speaking the City Clerk, who wore the little bronze button of the G. A. R., asked Jimmy if he didn't want someone to take care of the Democratic meeting. Jimmy, who hated politics, was running his legs off to get the names of the visitors, and was glad to have the help. He turned in the contributed copy without reading it, as he had done with the City Clerk's articles many times before, and this is what greeted his horrified eyes when he read the paper: "UNDER THE STARS & BARS" Democracy Opens Its State Campaign Under the Rebel Emblem To-day A Fitting Token Treasonable Utterances Have a Proper Setting And then followed half a column of most violent abuse of the Democrats who had charge of the affair. Jimmy did not appear on the street that night, but the next morning, when he came down, the office was crowded with indignant Democrats "stopping the paper."