Peter went to Rufus Twice and told him that Pat didn't seem to be making any progress in general work.
"You ought to be more patient, Neale," answered Twice. "What's all this hurry about Pat? He won't be twenty-one yet for a couple of years."
"It's nearer than that. It's just thirteen months and three days." Peter could have told him the hours and the minutes too which lay between Pat and his eight o'clock appointment in Paris.
"That doesn't make him exactly aged. He's learning or he ought to be learning all the time. Even if he didn't get a line in the paper all year he wouldn't be wasting his time. Just being here helps him to pick up my way of doing things. Of course, when I say 'my' I mean the paper's."
"All that's perfectly true, Mr. Twice, but I have a very special reason for wanting him to get ahead right now. I want him to be interested. I want him to feel that he's important."
"There isn't any job around here that isn't important. You ought to know that, Neale. None of us count as individuals. We're all part of the Bulletin. Nobody can say that one cog's more important than another. Did you ever see a Liberty motor assembled?"
"Yes," said Peter with as much haste and emphasis as he could muster, but it was probably the convenient ringing of the phone which saved him.
"If Mr. Boone has anything to say in reply to the story we printed this morning he's welcome to come to my office and see me. That is if he's got facts. I want you to know that I resent his making his complaint through an advertising agency. I don't care if I am impolite. I intend to be. Don't bother to threaten me about your advertising. You can't take it out. I'll beat you to that. It's thrown out. Good-bye."
Twice swung his chair around and faced Peter. "I've just cost the paper $65,000 a year in advertising," he said cheerfully. "The Dubell Agency was trying to bawl me out about that Sun Flower Oil story we had on the front page this morning. Did you see it?"
"Well, I saw the headlines," said Peter untruthfully.