"'If you go back to Plattville!'" she said in a low voice. "What do you
mean?"
"I don't know. I've been dull lately, and I thought I might go somewhere
else." Caught in a witchery no lack of possession could dispel, and which
the prospect of loss made only stronger while it lasted, he took little
thought of what he said; little thought of anything but of the gladness it
was to be with her again.
"'Somewhere else?' Where?"
"Anywhere."
"Have you no sense of responsibility? What is to become of your paper?"
"The 'Herald'? Oh, it will potter along, I think."
"But what has become of it in your absence, already? Has it not
deteriorated very much?"
"No," he said; "it's better than it ever was before."
"What!" she cried, with a little gasp.
"You're so astounded at my modesty?"
"But please tell me what you mean," she said quickly. "What happened to
it?"
"Isn't the 'Herald' rather a dull subject? I'll tell you how well Judge
Briscoe looked when he came to see me; or, rather, tell me of your summer
in the north."
"No," she answered earnestly. "Don't you remember my telling you that I am
interested in newspaper work?"
"I have even heard so from others," he said, with an instant of dryness.
"Please tell me about the 'Herald'?"
"It is very simple. Your friend, Mr. Fisbee, found a substitute, a
relative six feet high with his coat off, a traction engine for energy and
a limited mail for speed. He writes me letters on a type writer suffering
from an impediment in its speech; and in brief, he is an enterprising
idiot with a mania for work-baskets."
Her face was in the shadow.
"You say the--idiot--is enterprising?" she inquired.
"Far more enterprising and far less idiot than I. They are looking for oil
down there, and when he came he knew less about oil than a kindergarten
babe, and spoke of 'boring for kerosene' in his first letter to me; but he
knows it all now, and writes long and convincing geological arguments. If
a well comes in, he is prepared to get out an extra! Perhaps you may
understand what that means in Plattville, with the 'Herald's' numerous
forces. I owe him everything, even the shares in the oil company, which he
has persuaded me to take. And he is going to dare to make the 'Herald' a
daily. Do you remember asking me why I had never done that? It seemed
rather a venture to try to compete with the Rouen papers in offering State
and foreign news, but this young Gulliver has tacked onto the Associated
Press, and means to print a quarto--that's eight pages, you know--once a
week, Saturday, and a double sheet, four pages, on other mornings. The
daily venture begins next Monday."