Ned's face mantled with a sickly smile,—very readily, indeed, for the "funny man's" reputation for wit was so well established that everybody laughed at everything he said, and he did not have to crack a bona fide joke more than once or twice a year to sustain it. Thus he became chary of his good things.
Ned's face was more pitiful with the sickly smile upon it than in anxious gravity.
The good-natured man's finger and thumb were inserted in the pocket of his waistcoat.
"Methinks," he said with mock seriousness, "methinks the goodly goober is the fruit of the earth in which thy soul most delighteth."
He twirled a silver quarter of a dollar across the desk, and the devil caught it.
"With best wishes for your digestion," said the "funny man" politely.
And the devil laughed again.
Little did either foresee the damage that coin was to do—even though diverted from the purchase of peanuts.
For the devil felt the need of a change of air.
A proofreader and his copyholder, engaged in their trying exercises hard by, had shown some impatience of this puerile dialogue carried on at full voice. Being silently motioned out by the "funny man" with a facetious air of mock mystery, Ned had nothing to do for a time after rendering up his copy in the composing-room, but to lean on the sill of the high window in the hall of the fifth story and await orders.