Ned was amazed to see how the truth does prevail, how readily and implicitly his story was believed when it was given from the witness stand, and how promptly he was acquitted. Gorham took advantage of every technicality and prosecuted the villains to the extremest limit of the law. They deserved all that they got, which was indeed good measure, but in his observation of Gorham in these days Ned became more and more aware that impulse is a poor substitute for principle as a basis of action, and that although impulse may serve as an excuse for much that is fierce or weak, it detracts from the merit of what is good. Gorham's kindly whim which restored him to liberty was no whit more kindly than the severe editor's lecture bidding him observe what great evils may grow from a cowardly concealment of the truth.
"It would have ruined us all but for the gilt-edged way the champion set that type," the managing editor presently observed aside, with a laugh, to his colleague. And with the recollection the editor-in-chief, whose copy was canceled by the devil, was at last able to laugh too.
For those strong and false accusations of Gorham, which would have laid the paper liable for libel, were never published, and the insurance companies made good the loss by the fire in great haste and with many plausible and polite excuses for the previous delay.
Peter Bateman's perjury was committed in so important a case that it did not escape notice. On the trial he broke down and confessed, hoping to elude punishment on the strength of his penitence. In fact he was so limp, so tearful, so flabby, so fat, that he produced a youthful, irresponsible impression, and narrowly missing the State Prison, he was sent to the Reform School, where it is to be hoped he is learning that there is some policy as well as piety in keeping the ninth commandment.
Ned continues to work in the composing-room bossed by Bob Platt. For on the memorable day when the champion's exploit of type-setting was explained, the whole editorial corps turned to and besought the discharged foreman, unjustly accused and maltreated, to remain, and after much insistence he gracefully yielded.
But Bob Platt learned a lesson too, and has joined the Sons of Temperance.
Often now when the evening is lingering long on the spires and domes and mansard roofs, and the moon rises up from among them somewhere, as if she were a resident of the town rarely straying beyond the corporate limits, and the mocking-bird mounts his perch in the barber-shop below and sings his roundelay,—poor captive troubadour!—and the stars muster one by one, and the composing-room is dusky save for a dim gas-jet here and there, and is filled with mellow shadows and mellow memories too, the foreman and the devil are wont to lean on the window-sill and look out and enjoy the interval of rest, and the touch of the breeze, and the faint, fading, roseate flush in the west, and laugh as they talk over again in much amity this exploit of the champion's type-setting.
The Riverside Press
Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.
BOOKS BY
"Charles Egbert Craddock."
(MARY N. MURFREE.)