"Yes,—he says I'm too thin-skinned."
Joe stood for a moment with the front page of the paper still in his hand. Something of Jonathan came into his face,—the same firm lines about his mouth that his father had when he crawled under the floor timbers of the mill to save Baker's girl, pinned down and drowning, the night of the freshet.
Crushing the sheet in his hand Joe walked straight into the city editor's office, a swing in his movement and a look in his eye that roused everybody in the room.
"You've got Katie Murdock fired, she says," he hissed between his teeth. "What fur?" He was standing over the night city editor now, his eyes blazing, his fists tightly closed.
"What business have you to ask?" growled the editor.
"Every business!" There was something in the boy's face that made the man move his hand toward a paper weight.
"She's fired because she wouldn't do your dirty work. Look at this!"—he had straightened out the crumpled sheet now: "Look at it! That's your work!—ain't a dog would a-done it, let alone a man. Do you know what's happened? That girl's mother went crazy when she saw that picture! You sent that catamount, Miss Parker, to do it, and she done it fine, and filled it full o' lies and dirt! Ye didn't care who ye hurt, you—"
The man sprang to his feet.
"Here!—put yourself outside that door! Get out or I'll—"
"Git out, will I!—ME!—I'll git out when you eat yer words,—and you WILL eat 'em. Down they go—"