Sidney Ames slouched into the editor’s office and sank heavily into a chair. Haynerd gave a despairing gesture. “Look here,” he said, in sudden desperation, “that fellow’s got to be sobered up, now! Or else––”
Another call came, this time from the Beaubien. Father Waite had just come in. Could he take the assignment? Haynerd eagerly gave the address over the ’phone, and bade him start at once.
“Now,” he said, nodding at Carmen, and jerking his thumb over his shoulder toward the intoxicated reporter, “it’s up to you.”
Carmen rose at once and went to the lad. “Come, Sidney,” she said, taking his hand.
The boy roused dully, and shuffled stupidly after the girl into her own little office.
Carmen switched on the lights and closed the door. Then she went to the limp, emaciated form crumpled up in a chair, and sat down beside it.
“Sidney,” she said, taking his hand, “there is but one habit––the habit of righteousness. That is the habit that you are going to wear now.”
Outside, the typewriters clicked, the telephones tinkled, and the linotypes snapped. There were quick orders; men came and went hurriedly; but there was no noise, no confusion. Haynerd toiled like a beaver; but his whole heart was in his work. He had found his niche. Carmen’s little room voiced the sole discordant note that night. And as the girl sat there, holding the damp hand of the poor victim, she thanked her 115 God that the lad’s true individuality was His pure thought of him.
At dawn Sidney Ames awoke. A rosy-tinted glow lay over the little room, and the quiet form at his side seemed an ethereal presence. A gentle pressure from the hand that still clasped his brought a return of his earthly sense, and he roused up.