The new stores opened, one by one, with much celebration. Owing to several unaccountable financial complications, the last of all the important buildings on Main street to be finished was the _Herald_ office. A cylinder press, second-handed, to be sure, but none the less an object of admiration, was installed, and fonts of clean, new type stood ready for work. There was a great, sunny front office on the main floor, and the ample space behind it had been divided into composing room, press room and private office. On the second floor was a small job press, and here, at Jap's suggestion, the old Washington press was stored. The rooms were decorated with flags, and bunting was strung across the front of the office. Judge Bowers had personally attended to this. "You're going to have a dandy paper," Tom Granger beamed, as he accompanied Jap on the final tour of inspection. "We'll all have to stop business to watch this cylinder press spill out the news." Wat Harlow had run down from the Capital to congratulate the staff. At his suggestion the merchants had ordered flowers from the city, and great vases of roses and carnations, and decorative pieces in symbolic design, stood around in fragrant profusion. Every room of the office was filled with them. The forms were ready for the printing of that first paper, and only awaited the conclusion of Wat's speech, to be placed upon the press, so that Bloomtown should receive the salutatory _Herald_. Jap turned to the assemblage, waiting in eager curiosity to see the cylinder revolve. "The paper will be printed on Ellis's press," he said briefly. "I don't want to be ungrateful for your kindness, but will you leave Bill and me alone to get out our first edition?" They filed out slowly, awed by the grief in the voice of Ellis's boy. With the old types, on the old Washington hand press, they printed the first _Herald_ of the new regime. With the exception of the greeting on the front page, every word was reprinted from the predictions written by Ellis in the years agone, and the greeting, in long pica on the first page, was his telegram to them and his townsmen received that morning. When the last paper was printed by the two sad-faced boys on their day of jubilee, and the pile had been folded and carried downstairs, Jap closed the press upon the inky type, and gathered the great bunches of fragrant blossoms and heaped them upon the press, to be forever silent. With a groan of anguish, he threw himself against them. Bill slipped his arm through Jap's, and together they celebrated the day that was Ellis's. And in the night the telegram came: "At rest. FLOSSY." CHAPTER X