Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.) -- Fiction
There were a lot of things the news editor didn't tell Eleanor just
here; and I beg of you, dear reader, to remember these things when you
execrate the press; for they happen every day to plain fellows, some of
them profane fellows, who make no professions and blow no trumpet.
When the news editor walked out of the office that morning, he owned,
besides the Smelter City lots, which were mortgaged to the hilt, and
six "kiddies," who had to be fed, precisely the five dollar bill in his
pocket, the clothes on his back and the duster coat that he carried out
on his arm. It was a mere detail, of course; but it was one of the
details he didn't tell Eleanor. When he had gone home and told his
wife, she had asked, "For Heaven's sake, Joe, what ever will we do, run
a fruit stand; or peddle milk?" Joe had answered the distracted
question with a lighter hearted laugh than she had heard for many a
day. Then he had gone off to catch Wayland.
But Eleanor did not know all this. Her quick wit grasped one salient
fact. You think, perhaps, it was that Wayland had been dismissed? It
wasn't.
"You mean that you have lost your position because of the evidence you
gave for us?"
Then the news editor did what he always told his underlings not to do
and to do--"Never lie; but if you have to, lie like a gentleman."
"Not at all, Miss MacDonald! I got fired because I told the truth! If
I had given evidence that was simply in your favor, I'd deserve to be
fired; but it was only a matter of somebody letting in a little honest
daylight. I told Wayland at the time that I'd cooked my dough! Funny
enough, the wire that came firing me this morning was immediately
followed by a wire from Washington announcing that he has been
dismissed for taking three weeks' absence without leave. We got it in
the neck together, Miss MacDonald, and I thought maybe Wayland would be
game enough to have a--a--a shake with me over it."
"Yes, a shake," smiled Eleanor. "I'd like to mix it for you!"
The news editor suddenly lost all shyness, burst out laughing, leaned
forward and shook hands.
"Don't know whether you know it or not," he went on, "but about a month
ago one of those d--I beg your pardon, Miss MacDonald, Down-East
scribblerettes, that come out to see the West from a Pullman car window
and put things right, passed through here. Somebody got him and filled
him up pretty full with a lot of lies about Wayland--"
"You mean Brydges gave him the facts?" asked Eleanor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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