"But my dear fellow! I can't let you _leave me!_ You've no idea how I value your assistance, how I've come to lean and depend upon you at every point. I never dreamed you were thinking of this. What's the matter? What have you got on your mind?" "I think," said Queed, unhappily, "that I should be better satisfied off the paper than on it." "Why, confound you--it's the money!" said West, with a sudden relieved laugh. "Why didn't you tell me, old fellow? You're worth five times what they're paying you--five times as much as I am for that matter--and I can make the directors see it. Trust me to make them raise you to my salary at the next meeting." "Thank you--but no, my salary is quite satisfactory." West frowned off into space, looking utterly bewildered. "Of course," he said in a troubled voice, "you have a perfect right to resign without saying a word. I haven't the smallest right to press you for an explanation against your will. But--good Lord! Here we've worked together side by side, day after day, for nearly a year, pretty good friends, as I thought, and--well, it hurts a little to have you put on your hat and walk out without a word. I wish you would tell me what's wrong. There's nothing I wouldn't do, if I could, to fix it and keep you." The eyes of the two men met across the table, and it was Queed's that faltered and fell. "Well," he said, obviously embarrassed, "I find that I am out of sympathy with the policy of the paper." "Oh-h-ho!" said West, slowly and dubiously. "Do you mean my article on the reformatory?" "Yes--I do." "Why, my dear fellow!" West paused, his handsome eyes clouded, considering how best he might put the matter to overcome most surely the singular scruples of his assistant. "Let's take it this way, old fellow. Suppose that my standpoint in that article was diametrically wrong. I am sure I could convince you that it was not, but admit, for argument's sake, that it was. Do you feel that the appearance in the paper of an article with which you don't agree makes it necessary for you, in honor, to resign?" "No, certainly not--" "Is it that you don't like my turning down one of your articles and printing one of my own instead? I didn't know you objected to that, old fellow. You see--while your judgment is probably a hanged sight better than mine, after all I am the man who is held responsible, and I am paid a salary to see that my opinions become the opinions of the _Post_." "It is entirely right that your opinions--" "Then wherein have I offended? Be frank with me, like a good fellow, I beg you!" Queed eyed him strangely. Was the editor's inner vision really so curiously astigmatic?