the linotypers angrily.
"Something loose in his belfry, as ye might have surmised from thim
damfool tax-drools."
For Mr. Pat was still another reader of the unanswerable articles, he
being paid the sum of twenty-seven dollars per week to peruse everything
that went into the _Post_, including advertisements of auction sales and
for sealed bids.
Queed returned to his own office for his hat and coat. Having heard his
feet upon the stairs, Colonel Cowles called Out:--
"What was the rumpus upstairs, do you know? It sounded as if somebody
had a bad fall."
"Somebody did get a fall, though not a bad one, I believe."
"Who?" queried the editor briefly.
"I."
In the hall, it occurred to Queed that perhaps he had misled his chief a
little, though speaking the literal truth. The fall that some _body_ had
gotten was indeed nothing much, for people's bodies counted for nothing
so long as they kept them under. But the fall that this body's
self-esteem had gotten was no such trivial affair. It struck the young
man as decidedly curious that the worst tumble his pride had ever
received had come to him through his body, that part of him which he had
always treated with the most systematic contempt.
The elevator received him, and in it, as luck would have it, stood a
tall young man whom he knew quite well.
"Hello, there, Doc!"
"How do you do, Mr. Klinker?"
"Been up chinning your sporting editor, Ragsy Hurd. Trying to arrange a
mill at the Mercury between Smithy of the Y.M.C.A. and Hank McGurk, the
White Plains Cyclone."
"A mill--?"
"Scrap--boxin' match, y' know. Done up your writings for the day?"
"My newspaper writings--yes."
In the brilliant close quarters of the lift, Klinker was looking at Mr.
Queed narrowly. "Where you hittin' for now? Paynter's?"
"Yes."
"Walkin'?--That's right. I'll go with you."
As they came out into the street, Klinker said kindly: "You ain't
feelin' good, are you, Doc? You're lookin' white as a milk-shake."
"I feel reasonably well, thank you. As for color, I have never had any,
I believe."
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