Mr. Opp, who had been smiling absently at the portrait, started guiltily. “Yes,” he said confusedly; “yes, ma’am, I think she is.” Then he felt a curious tingling about his ears and realized, to his consternation, that he was blushing.
“She’s too droopin’ a type for me,” said Miss Jim, removing an ostrich tip from her angle of vision; then she continued in a side whisper: “Say, would you mind making Nick take this bottle of milk at twelve o’clock, and resting a little? He ain’t as strong as he lets on, and he has sort of sinking spells ’long about noon.”
Receiving the bottle thus surreptitiously [p89] offered, and assisting the lady to gather up her bundles, Mr. Opp bowed her out, and turned to face the embarrassing necessity of giving instructions to his new employee. He was relieved to find, however, that the young gentleman in question possessed initiative; for Nick had promptly removed his coat, and fallen to work, putting things to rights with an energy and ability that caused Mr. Opp to offer up a prayer of heartfelt gratitude.
All the morning they worked silently, Mr. Opp toiling over his editorial, with constant references to a small dictionary which he concealed in the drawer of the table, and Nick giving the presses a thorough and much-needed overhauling.
At the noon-hour they shared their lunch, and Mr. Opp, firm in the authority invested in him by Miss Jim, demanded that Nick should drink his milk, and recline at length upon the office bench for twenty minutes. It was with great difficulty that Nick was persuaded to submit [p90] to this transferred coddling; but he evidently realized that insubordination at the start of his career would be fatal, and, moreover, his limbs ached and his hands trembled.
It was in the intimacy of this, their first, staff meal, that they discussed the policy of the paper.
“Of course,” said Mr. Opp, “we have got a vast undertaking in front of us. For the next few months we won’t scarcely have time to draw a natural breath. I am going to put every faculty I own on to making ‘The Opp Eagle’ a fine paper. I expect to get here at seven o’clock A.M., and continue to pursue my work as far into the midnight hours as may need be. Nothing in the way of pleasure or anything else is going to pervert my attention. Of course you understand that my mind will be taken up with the larger issues of things, and I’ll have to risk a dependence on you to attend to the smaller details.”
“All right,” said Nick, gratefully; “you won’t be sorry you trusted me, [p91] Mr. Opp. I’ll do my level best. When will we get out the first issue?”
“Well—er—the truth is,” said Mr. Opp, “I haven’t, as you might say, accumulated sufficient of material as yet. You see, I have a great many irons in the fire, and besides opening up this office, I am the president of a company that’s just bought up twenty acres of ground around here. The biggest oil proposition—”
“Yes, sir,” interrupted Nick; “but don’t you think we could get started in two weeks, with the ads and the contributors’ letters from other counties, and a story or two I could run in, and your editorial page?”