As the farmer departed, grinning cheerfully, Tom Granger appeared at the door of the _Herald_ office. A conference of prominent citizens had been summoned to meet, early that afternoon, in the Granger and Harlow bank, a somewhat more pretentious building, separated from the _Herald_ office by a narrow alley; and during a lull in the morning's business Tom was serving himself in the capacity of errand boy. From his place on the front steps, he could watch for the possible advent of depositor or daylight robber, there being no rear door to the bank. "You'll be on hand, Ellis," he reminded. "Couldn't have any kind of a meeting without the _Herald_, you know. We won't keep you long." But the session was more important than the banker had anticipated. Judge Bowers had prepared a lengthy discourse, and others had opinions that needed ventilating. Once or twice, Ellis was irritated by shrieks of laughter that emanated from the office across the alley, usually in Bill's shrill treble. When the cause of the merriment had reached an exceptional climax, the Editor pounced upon his assistants, wearing the scowl of a thunder god. Jap and Bill got up, shamefacedly, as he demanded: "What do you think I am conducting this plant for? A circus for horse-play?" He kicked the cat loose from the box Jap had it hitched to. The two boys looked ruefully at their over-turned cart. "There goes the hell-box!" Bill screamed. Ellis stared at him in transfixed wrath. "Was that pi?" he demanded, looking down the hole in the floor into which most of the contents of the box had spilled. Bill darted into the back room and sneaked swiftly out through the alley door. The office saw him no more that day. With such tools as were available, Jap set to work to undo the mischief he had wrought. An hour later, he replaced the plank in the floor. The rescued type was piled in a dirty litter of refuse. Ellis leaned over it, attracted by a gleam that shone as not even new type could glitter. "It's a ring," explained Jap, furtively. "I reckon you won't be so mad now. I can soak it when we get hungry. I soaked my ma's ring, lots of times." "Why, you young reprobate!" exclaimed Ellis, "that ring is not yours, or mine. We will advertise it." He smiled in Jap's disappointed face. "It looked like a beefsteak, didn't it, boy? Well, virtue is its own reward, and maybe the owner will pay for the ad." But she did not, and yet the kick given to the inoffensive office cat had effects as far-reaching in the result to Bloomtown as did the kick of the famous Chicago cow, with this difference, that the effects were not disastrous. The brief ad in the _Herald_ brought Flossy Bowers from her home in Barton to claim a ring she had lost fifteen years before.