Once a week Bill and Jap drew straws to determine which one should fare forth in quest of funds, and for the first time in his brief business career, Jap was glad the depressing task had fallen to him. "Pi" was likely to bring on an acute attack of mental indigestion, and the boy had learned to dread Ellis Hinton's infrequent but illuminating flame of wrath. The catastrophe had been blotted out, the last stickful of type had been set and Bill had gone home to supper when Jap, leg-weary and discouraged, wandered into the office. Ellis looked up from the form he was adjusting. "How did you ever pick out this town?" the boy complained, turning the result of his day's collection on the table. Ellis turned from the bit of pine he was whittling, a makeshift depressingly familiar to the country editor. He scanned the meager assortment of coins with anxious eye. Jap's lower jaw dropped. "I'll have to fire you if you haven't got enough to pay for the paper." "Got enough for that," said Jap mournfully, "but not enough for meat." "Didn't Loghman owe for his ad?" Ellis demanded. "Did you ask him for it?" "Says you owe him more 'n he's willin' for you to owe," Jap ventured. Ellis sighed. "Meat's not healthy this damp weather," he suggested. "Cook something light." "It'll be darned light," said Jap. "There's one tater." "No bread?" asked Ellis. "Give that scrap to the cat," Jap returned, "Doc Hall says she's done eat all the mice in town and if we don't feed her she'll be eatin' off'n the subscribers." "Confound Doc Hall," stormed Ellis. "You take your orders from me. That bread, stewed with potato, would have made a dandy dish." He shook the form to settle it, and faced Jap. "How did I come to pick this place?" he said slowly. "Well, Jap, it was the dirtiest deal a boy ever got. I had a little money after my father died. I wanted to invest it in a newspaper, somewhere in the West, where the world was honest and young. I had served my apprenticeship in a dingy, narrow little New England office, and I thought my lifework was cut out for me. I had big dreams, Jap. I saw myself a power in my town. With straw and mud I wanted to build a town of brick and stone. Dreams, dreams, Jap, dreams. Some day you may have them, too." He let his lean form slowly down into a chair. Jap braced himself against the table as the narrative continued: "In Hartford I met Hallam, the man who started the Bloomtown _Herald_. I heard his flattering version. I inspected his subscription list and studied the columns of his paper, full of ads. I bought. The subs were deadheads, the ads--gratuitous, for my undoing. It was indeed straw and mud, and, lad, it has remained straw and mud." He leaned his head on his hand for a moment.