As she came to dinner the next day, Mary laid a bundle of mail beside her father's plate. When he saw it, Peter, as was his custom, reached for the Herald to read the war headlines. He opened the paper, gave it a shake, stared at it in amazement, scanned a few lines and muttered: "Well for the Lord's sake!"
Then he glanced over the sheets at Mickey and back again. The family arose and hurried to a point of vantage at Peter's shoulder, while he spread the paper wide and held it high so that all of them could see. Enclosed in a small ruled space they read:
Sacred to the memory of the biggest scoop, That ever fell in Mister
Chaffner's soup,
And was pitched by this nicest editor-man,
Where it belonged, in the garbage can,
To please his friend, Michael O'Halloran.
Whoop fellers, whoop, for the drownded scoop, That departed this life
in our Editor's soup!
All together boys, Scoop! Soup! Whoop!
They rushed at Mickey, shook hands, thumped, patted and praised him, when a wail arose to the point of reaching his consciousness.
"Mickey, what?" cried Peaches.
"Let me take it just a minute, Peter," said Mickey.
"Wait a second," suggested Mrs. Harding, picking up a big roll that they had knocked to the floor. "This doesn't look like catalogues, and it's addressed to you. Likely they've sent you some of your own."
"Now maybe Mr. Chaffner did," said Mickey, almost at the bursting point. "Course he is awful busy, the busiest man in the world, I expect, but he might have sent me a copy of my poetry, since he used it."
With shaking fingers he opened the roll, and there were several copies of the Herald similar to the one Peter held, and on the top of one was scrawled in pencil: "Your place, your desk, and your salary are ready whenever you want to begin work. You can't come too soon to suit me.—CHAFFNER."
Mickey read it aloud.