“Well,” replied the man, “it is not so much on the looks. But here it is from which great ideas have gone forth in print.” “Do you write ’em all?” asked the boy abruptly. Donatello laughed a little. “I do not write all that which appears in my paper,” he replied. “But the editorial; yes, that I write.” Chick drew from his pocket a copy of _The Disinherited_ and pointed to the article which had disturbed him. “Did you write that?” he demanded. The editor laughed again. “Yes, that have I written. Do you like it? No?” “No,” replied the boy. “I don’t like it. That’s what I’ve come for; to tell you I don’t like it. Them fellows ain’t no tools of nobody. They’re jest soldiers. They obey orders. If them strikers don’t want to get hurt, let ’em behave theirselves. That’s all they is to it.” Donatello swung himself around on his stool and stared at General Chick in amazement. Then his look of surprise gave way to one of amusement. He clasped his hands over his knee and smiled. “You champion the cause of militarism?” he asked. “I don’t know what that is,” replied the boy. “But I b’lieve in the National Guard, and I b’lieve in Company E, and I expect to jine it myself the first chance I git.” “So! you would also the soldier be?” “Sure I’d be a soldier. Why, the best fellows in town belong to Company E. Don’t you know that?” “Some good fellows which I know, they belong; that’s true. And when it is that you also have belonged, there will be yet one more. Your first lieutenant, him, in all the city there is no choicer man. Brains he has. Heart he has. Wisdom he has. What else would you?” Donatello flung his hands into the air, as though the last word had been said in the way of encomium, slid down from his stool, went over and sat in a chair by a littered table, and motioned to Chick to occupy another chair near by which long ago had lost all semblance of a back. “Now you’ve said somethin’,” replied Chick, seating himself. “Ain’t no finer young man in Fairweather ’n what Lieutenant ’Cormack is. Him an’ me’s been friends sence the first day he come into the comp’ny.” “And he and I, we have been friends since the first day we have met with each other. Ha! Since we have the mutual friend, you and I, we also should be friends. Is it not so?” If Chick had ever felt any real animosity toward the editor of _The Disinherited_ he found himself now suddenly bereft of it. He could not look into the frank, friendly eyes of this young man, or note his winning smile, and harbor any grievance against him. “Sure!” he said; “I ain’t got nothin’ ag’inst you, ’cept what you put in the paper ’bout the Guard, and I guess you know now that you was on the wrong track, don’t you?” Donatello did not answer the question. A new thought seemed to have come to him. “Where is it that you work?” he asked. “Oh,” replied the boy, “I do odd chores around mornin’s. I ain’t got no stiddy, all-day job.” “How would you like it; an all-day job?” “Doin’ what?”