Part 23 (1/2)
”I want to know what I'm to do with all of these things,” replied his boss, indicating the augmenting drifts.
”Throw 'em on the floor, is _my_ advice,” said the employee drowsily.
”The more stuff you throw away, the better paper you get out. That's a proverb of the business.”
”In other words, you think the paper would get along better without me than with me?”
”But you're enjoying yourself, aren't you?” queried his employee.
Heaving himself out of his chair, he ambled over to Hal's desk and evolved out of the chaos some semblance of order. ”Don't find it as easy as your enthusiasm painted it,” he suggested.
”Oh, I've still got the enthusiasm. If only I knew where to begin.”
Ellis rubbed his ear thoughtfully and remarked: ”Once I knew a man from Phoenix, Arizona, who was so excited the first time he saw the ocean that he borrowed a uniform from an absent friend, s.h.i.+nned aboard a five-thousand-ton brigantine, and ordered all hands to put out to sea immediately in the teeth of a whooping gale. But he,” added the narrator in the judicial tone of one who cites mitigating circ.u.mstances, ”was drunk at the time.”
”Thanks for the parallel. I don't like it. But never mind that. The question is, What am I going to do?”
”That's the question all right. Are you putting it to me?”
”I am.”
”Well, I was just going to put it to you.”
”No use. I don't know.”
The two men looked each other in the eye, long and steadily. Ellis's harsh face relaxed to a sort of grin.
”You want me to tell you?”
”Yes.”
”What do you think you're hiring, a Professor of Journalism in the infant cla.s.s?” The tone of the question offset any apparent ill-nature in the wording.
”It might be made worth your while.”
”All right; I'm hired.”
”That's good,” said Hal heartily. ”I think you'll find I'm not hard to get along with.”
”I think _you'll_ find _I_ am,” replied the other with some grimness.
”But I know the game. Well, let's get down to cases. What do you want to do with the 'Clarion'?”
”Make it the cleanest, decentest newspaper in the city.”
”Then you don't think it's that, now.”
”No. I know it isn't.”
”Did you get that from Dr. Surtaine?”
”Partly.”