"There's Jim sitting in the editor's chair," observed Thad, looking through a dusty window.
"Must be Mr. Adoiphus Hanks, who owns and edits the Courier, is out of town just at present. Say, that would just suit us to a fraction, wouldn't it, Hugh?"
"It might make things easier for us," admitted the other; and then they burst in on the important if diminutive Jim, who received them with all the airs of a metropolitan editor.
"Glad to see you, boys," he told them; "just take seats, will you, and excuse me for three minutes. I'm winding up the main editorial for this week's issue. Hanks is out of town, and has left me in full charge; but then that happens frequently nowadays; and, say, some foolish people have gone so far as to say they can tell when he's absent because, well, the paper shows it; but I tell them they are only saying that to flatter me. Three minutes, boys, and I'll be at your service."
Whatever it was Jim was doing on the typewriter, he continued to pound laboriously away for about that length of time. Then finishing he drew the sheet out, glanced over it, made some corrections, smiled as though highly pleased, and called out to a boy who was working a hand press to come and take it to the lone compositor, standing at his case in a distant corner of the den.
"That'll make folks sit up and take notice I kind of think," said Jim, swelling out his chest with an air of great importance. "Don't ask me what it is all about, for I want it to be a surprise to the community. Read it in tomorrow's issue of the Weekly Courier. Now, what can I do for you, Thad, old scout? Anything connected with the Scranton High baseball team you want written up for next week? I'm always ready to favor the boys, because I used to play ball myself away back."
Hugh would have liked to laugh, but he refrained, not wishing to offend Jim, who was evidently suffering from an overweening sense of his own importance, since he had graduated into a temporary occupancy of the editorial chair. Jim was considerably short of twenty at that, so it could not have been more than a year or two since he used to play ball, and train with the other boys of Scranton High.
Thad got busy, and began to tell how they had first ran across the strange hobo in his camp, cooking a meal. He continued the story with a description of how the long wandering Brother Lu had been so warmly welcomed by Matilda and her sick husband, and thereupon deliberately settled down to enjoying himself at their expense.
Thad was a pretty good hand at narrating a yarn, and he worked the interest up by degrees until he had Jim's eyes as round as saucers, while he hung upon every word that was spoken. Hugh only broke in once in a while to add a few sentences to something his chum said.
Finally the climax was reached when Thad explained the scheme he and Hugh had concocted between them, and how much they would appreciate the assistance of Jim in this dilemma.