"I didn't! I'm trying to tell you!" persisted Mickey.
Peaches shed one degree of royal hauteur. "Well why don't you go on an' tell, then?"
"Aw-w-ah! Well if you don't maneuver to beat a monoplane! I've tried to tell you, and you won't let me. If you stop me again, I'm going to march out of this room and stay 'til you bawl your eyes red for me."
"If you go, I'll call Junior!" said Peaches instantly.
"Well go on and call him!"
He turned, his heart throbbing, his eyes burning with repressed tears, the big gulp in his throat audible to Peaches, as her little wail was to him. He whirled and dropping on his knees took her in his arms. She threw hers around his neck, buried her face against his cheek, and they cried it out together. At last she produced a bit of linen, and mopped Mickey's eyes and face, then her own. While still clinging to him she whispered: "Mickey, I'm jus' about dead to have it be the Herald, an' the front page, an' you, an' not about me!"
"Flowersy-girl, I'm just as sorry as you are," said Mickey. "It was this way: I was just crazy over things our editor-man did, that saved our dear boss and the lovely Moonshine Lady who gave you your Precious Child and her 'darling old Daddy' from such awful trouble it would just a-killed them; honest it would Lily! When our editor-man was so great and nice, and did what he didn't want to at all, I went sort of wild like, and when I was off for the day and got on the streets, everything pulled me his way. I was anxious just to see him again, and if I'd done what I wanted to, I'd a-gone in the Herald office and knelt down, and said: 'Thank you, oh thank you!' and kissed his feet, but of course I knew men didn't do like that, and it would have shamed him, but I had to do something or bust, and I went running for the office like flying, and my mind got whirling around, and that stuff began to come.
"I slipped in and back to his desk, like I may if I want to, and there he sat. He had a big white sheet just like this before it is printed, spread out, and a pencil in his fingers, and about a dozen of his best men were crowding 'round with what they had for the paper to-day. I've told you how they do it, often, and when I edged up some of the men saw me. They knew I had a pass to him, so they stepped back just as he said: 'Well boys, who's got some big stuff to fill the space of our departed scoop?' That 'departed' word means lost, gone, and it's what they say about people when they—they go for good. Then he looked up to see who would speak first, and noticed me. 'Oh there is the little villain who scooped our scoop, right now,' he said. 'Let's make him fill the space he's cut us out of.' I thought it was a joke, but I wasn't going to have all that bunch of the swellest smarties who work for him put it clear over me; I've kidded back with my paper men too long for that; so I stepped back and shot it at him, that what's printed there, and when I got to the end and invited the fellows to 'Whoop,' Lily, you could a-heard them a mile. I saw they was starting for me, so I just slung in a 'Thank you something awful, boss,' and ducked through and between, and cut for life; 'cause if they'd a-got me, I might a-been there yet. They are the nicest men on earth, but they get a little keyed up sometimes, and a kid like me couldn't keep even. Now that's all there is to it, Lily, honest, cross my heart! I didn't know they would put it there. I didn't know they thought it was good enough. I wouldn't a-let them for the life of them, if I'd known they was going to."
"You jus' said it once, Mickey?" inquired Peaches.
"Jus' once, Flowersy-girl, fast as I could rattle."