The Widow Raymond had offered them a room for a printing office. The press occupied the room. Jap and Bill set the type in the woodshed and carried the galleys in. During the nine years of their association Bill had been the unsteady member of the team, consuming more effort in devising ways and means of escaping work than the work would have cost, and toiling with feverish penitence when he realized that he had wrought a hardship to Jap or Ellis. But now, inspired by the dimpled face of Rosy Raymond, he worked as he had never worked in his life. Odd things began to happen. Bill insisted on doing all the proof-reading, a task he had hitherto detested. A bit of verse occasionally crept into the columns of the _Herald_. Jap did not detect this verse for several weeks. When he did, he descended upon Bill. "Where in Heck did you filch that doggerel?" "Who said it was doggerel?" demanded Bill. "Lord love you," cried Jap, "what could any sane being call it? What did you get for publishing it--advertising rates?" "You're a fool!" snapped Bill. "You think that you're a criterion. I will have you know that lots of folks have complimented it." Jap took up the offending sheet. "'Thine eyes are blue, thine lips are red, thine locks are gold,'" he groaned. He looked at Bill. Just then the door opened and Rosy stepped into the room. A great light shone on Jap's understanding. Her eyes were blue, her lips certainly red, and a fervid imagination could call her hair gold. He sighed pathetically. "Bill, don't you think you could write it out and relieve the pressure on your heart, without endangering our prestige?" Bill kicked at the mongrel dog that had its habitat under the press, and marched out indignantly. "I'll be glad if I get him out of here single," mused Jap. "He has these spells as regular as the seasons change. Heretofore his prospects have never entitled him to consideration. This time it may be different." Bill had been systematically chased from every front gate in town, behind which rosy-cheeked girls abode; but the disquieting conviction swooped down upon Jap that Barkis, in the shape of the Widow Raymond, might be more than "willin'" to hitch Bill to her sixteen-year-old daughter. And if Bill had not contracted a new variety of measles at the most opportune time, Jap's forebodings might have been realized. Bill had the "catching" habit. No contagion in town ever escaped him, and this time he was so ill that he had to go to the country to recuperate.