Several days of relentless activity had followed the moving in. There was much to do. The four rooms became immaculately clean--sweetened up with soap and water, with neat wallpaper, with paint and furniture. Even the dark inner bedrooms contrived to look cozy and warm and inviting. Joe's mother was a true New England housekeeper, which meant scrupulous order, cleanliness, and brightness. The one room exempt from her rule was Joe's. After the first clean-up, his mother did not even try to begin on it. "You're hopeless, Joe," she laughed, "and you'll ruin faster than I can set right." And so that editorial office soon became a nest of confusion. The walls were lined with bookshelves and a quaint assortment of books, old and new, populated not only these, but the floor, the two tables, the roll-top desk, and here and there a chair. White paper began to heap up in the corners. Magazines--"my contemporaries," said the proud editor--began their limitless flood. And the matting on the floor was soon worn through by Joe's perpetual pacing. The whole home, however, began to have atmosphere--personality. There was something open, hospitable, warm about it--something comfortable and livable. Among the first things Joe did was to procure two assistants. One was the bookkeeper, Nathan Slate, a lean and dangling individual, who collapsed over his high desk in the corner like a many-bladed penknife. He was thin and cadaverous, and spoke in a meek and melancholy voice, studied and slow. He dressed in black and tried to suppress his thin height by stooping low and hanging his head. The other addition was Billy, the office-boy, a sharp, bright youth with red hair and brilliant blue eyes. There was much else to do. For instance, there were the money affairs to get in shape. Joe secured a five-per-cent mortgage with his capital. Marty Briggs paid down two thousand cash and was to pay two thousand a year and interest. So Joe could figure his income at somewhat over six thousand dollars, and, as he hoped that he and his mother would use not more than fifteen hundred a year, or, at the most, two thousand, he felt he had plenty to throw into his enterprise.