“I’ll treat them like glass, honest. I just want to show them to somebody now.”
“All right. I’m willing, if Molly is and if Jean has no objection.”
As no one objected to lending pictures to the boys, the following day saw Dan and “Rall” conferring with Jimmy Standish, and later with no less a person than the editor himself, in the editorial sanctum, a very ordinary but busy office.
“Why, yes,” said Mr. Standish, “we could print it for you at a very moderate price, but who will pay for the job? We are not running on exactly a missionary basis.”
“No, sir. We will pay for it out of our own pockets, unless it is more than we can handle, and soon the subscribers will pay for it.”
“You are more sure of your subscribers than we are,” said the editor, with a smile. “Let’s see the pictures.”
Dan unwrapped Molly’s and Phoebe’s drawings.
“Clever stuff,” said the editor, with another smile. “Yes, for a school paper such outlines will do very well. Send the girls in to see me some time. I can give them a hint or two. My advice is to make your paper snappy and short. Begin with two rather small pages or even one sheet. If you want to enlarge it you can. Get your stuff together and hand it to Jimmy to make ready for you. I’m making an editor out of Jimmy as soon as he learns a few more things——”
“About printing, and the composing room, and reporting, and everything else,” added Jimmy, who came in at this moment. “But Dan has a good idea about a school paper, Dad, and I think it will go with the kids. We’ll try ’em out on the first numbers. I’m to write the first editorials, Dad, so if there is anything you want to get across on school matters, let me know.”
“All right, Jimmy. There are a whole lot of things I’d like to ‘get across’ in this town, boys, but you don’t dare wake ’em up too soon when they’re walking in their sleep.”