"Who will succeed O'Connor?"
"I am thinking of promoting Gifford," replied the old man.
"Gifford!" cried the editor, under whom many a journalist had graduated. "Are you quite mad?"
"Are you?" retorted Ebenezer Brown, hotly.
'Many people say I am. But I was sane enough to shoot Gifford out the first chance I had of ridding the paper of him.
"You sent him to me with a yard of testimonial," growled Ebenezer Brown.
"Diplomacy, my dear sir. I never make an enemy unless I find myself compelled to do so in self-defence. You needed a new sub-editor, I a new reporter, and I merely shuffled the cards and dealt them again. In your case Gifford seems to have proved a success."
"How do you know that?" asked the old man, rudely.
"You are anxious to promote him."
"On your recommendation. 'A brilliant journalist' you called him," cried Ebenezer Brown.