“With which?”
“Wait a moment; I'll show you.”
He went into the dark composing-room, lit a candle, and rummaging in a drawer sacred to weather-beaten, old-fashioned electrotyped advertising symbols of various trades, finally selected one and brought it to Mrs. Dimmidge. It represented a bare and exceedingly stalwart arm wielding a large hammer.
“Your husband being a miner,—a quartz miner,—would that do?” he asked. (It had been previously used to advertise a blacksmith, a gold-beater, and a stone-mason.)
The lady examined it critically.
“It does look a little like Micah's arm,” she said meditatively. “Well—you kin put it in.”
The editor was so well pleased with his success that he must needs make another suggestion. “I suppose,” he said ingenuously, “that you don't want to answer the 'Personal'?”
“'Personal'?” she repeated quickly, “what's that? I ain't seen no 'Personal.'” The editor saw his blunder. She, of course, had never seen Mr. Dimmidge's artful “Personal;” THAT the big dailies naturally had not noticed nor copied. But it was too late to withdraw now. He brought out a file of the “Clarion,” and snipping out the paragraph with his scissors, laid it before the lady.
She stared at it with wrinkled brows and a darkening face.
“And THIS was in the same paper?—put in by Mr. Dimmidge?” she asked breathlessly.