Orders received, the impetuous Parker was departing on the instant, when
she stopped him with a little cry: "But you haven't any umbrella!" And she
forced her own, a slender wand, upon him; it bore a cunningly wrought
handle and its fabric was of glistening silk. The foreman, unable to
decline it, thanked her awkwardly, and, as she turned to speak to Fisbee,
bolted out of the door and ran down the steps without unfolding the
umbrella; and as he made for Mr. Martin's emporium, he buttoned it
securely under his long "Prince Albert," determined that not a drop of
water should touch and ruin so delicate a thing. Thus he carried it,
triumphantly dry, through the course of his reportings of that day.
When he had gone the editor laid her hand on Fisbee's arm. "Dear," she
said, "do you think you would take cold if you went over to the hotel and
made a note of all the arrivals for the last week--and the departures,
too? I noticed that Mr. Harkless always filled two or three--sticks, isn't
it?--with them and things about them, and somehow it 'read' very nicely.
You must ask the landlord all about them; and, if there aren't any, we can
take up the same amount of space lamenting the dull times, just as he used
to. You see I've read the 'Herald' faithfully; isn't it a good thing I
always subscribed for it?" She patted Fisbee's cheek, and laughed gaily
into his mild, vague old eyes.
"It won't be this scramble to 'fill up' much longer. I have plans,
gentlemen," she cried, "and before long we will print news. And we must
buy 'plate matter' instead of 'patent insides'; and I had a talk with the
Associated Press people in Rouen--but that's for afterwhile. And I went to
the hospital this morning before I left. They wouldn't let me see him
again, but they told me all about him, and he's better; and I got Tom to
go to the jail--he was so mystified, he doesn't know what I wanted it for
--and he saw some of those beasts, and I can do a column of description
besides an editorial about them, and I will be fierce enough to suit
Carlow, you may believe that. And I've been talking to Senator Burns--that
is, listening to Senator Burns, which is much stupider--and I think I can
do an article on national politics. I'm not very well up on local issues
yet, but I--" She broke off suddenly. "There! I think we can get out
to-morrow's number without any trouble. By the time you get back from the
hotel, father, I'll have half my stuff written--'written up,' I mean. Take
your big umbrella and go, dear, and please ask at the express office if my
typewriter has come."