Fisbee stopped, dumfounded, but the foreman, after stammeringly declining
an invitation to partake, alleging that his own meal awaited, sped down to
the printing-room, and seized upon Bud Tipworthy with a heavy hand.
"Where did all that come from, up there?"
"Leave go me! _What_ 'all that'?"
"All that tea and chicken and salad and wafers--all kinds of things;
sardines, for all I know!"
"They come in Briscoes' buckboard while you was gone. Briscoes sent 'em in
a basket; I took 'em up and she set the basket under the table. You'd seen
it if you'd 'a' looked. _Quit_ that!" And it was unjust to cuff the
perfectly innocent and mystified Bud, and worse not to tell him what the
punishment was for.
Before the day was over, system had been introduced, and the "Herald" was
running on it: and all that warm, rainy afternoon, the editor and Fisbee
worked in the editorial rooms, Parker and Bud and Mr. Schofield (after his
return with the items and a courteous message from Ephraim Watts) bent
over the forms downstairs, and Uncle Xenophon was cleaning the store-room
and scrubbing the floor.
An extraordinary number of errands took the various members of the
printing force up to see the editor-in-chief, literally to see the editor-
in-chief; it was hard to believe that the presence had not flown--hard to
keep believing, without the repeated testimony of sight, that the dingy
room upstairs was actually the setting for their jewel; and a jewel they
swore she was.
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