“Darling will be glad to see me back, anyhow,” he said to himself as he sprang merrily up the stairs; “so will Dr. Goode. The doctor always has a warm welcome for a fellow who’s been away on a journey. Three whole months since I’ve seen any of the boys! There’ll be some new faces among the reporters, I suppose. It’s funny to think that I’m one of the ‘old’ men now!” He spoke to the office boys as he entered the big room, and hurried up to the front to see Dr. Goode and the managing editor and the night city editor and Darling. Jack Randall and Lawrence and two or three others tried to stop him as he passed, but he waved his hand to them and went on. Something looked unfamiliar at the desks by the front windows. It took him a second or two to grasp the situation and see that Darling was sitting at the managing editor’s desk, and that Mr. Brown, the city editor, was in Dr. Goode’s chair. “Hello, Darling, old chap!” he exclaimed, putting out his hand; “what are you doing here?” “Be a little more respectful, if you please, in addressing your managing editor!” Darling answered. “I can’t have reporters and correspondents calling me ‘old chap’ in the office.” There was a sly twinkle in Darling’s eye as he said it; and he gave Dick’s hand a tremendous wrench. “Managing editor!” Dick repeated. “You don’t say that you’re”-- “Oh, yes, I do,” Darling interrupted. “These little things happen sometimes. The managing editor that was has gone to take charge of a paper in Minneapolis, and I have been put in his place.” “Shake again!” Dick exclaimed. “You the managing editor! Why that makes you my boss, and you might send me out to do a fire to-night, if you wanted to; but you’d better not. But where is the doctor? What is Mr. Brown doing at his desk?” Darling turned towards the papers in front of him and looked at them hard. “There is bad news as well as good, Dick,” he replied after a moment’s pause. “Dear, old doctor! He”-- “What! he’s not sick, is he?” Dick interrupted. But the moisture in Darling’s eyes was more eloquent than words. “O Darling! Oh, no, old chap, you don’t mean it? He’s not”-- Darling sadly shook his head and fumbled among his papers. “A week ago yesterday, Dick, we took him over to Greenwood. His poor old eyes will never give him any more trouble in this world. All these things have happened within a few days, and we wrote you about them; but I suppose you left Key West before the letters arrived.” Dick turned away without another word, for he would not trust his voice in that cruel moment. Sadly he shook hands with Mr. Brown, then looking toward Darling again, he said almost in a whisper: “There is nothing for me to do to-night; I need not stay here. I--I must go home. I will be up when you come home, Darling.”