The short, thick-set person, with the slightly bald head and distinctly red nose above a heavy black moustache, which trailed its way down each side of a clean-shaven chin and drooped over into space, was the editor himself. With a briar pipe, burnt at one side, stuck in his mouth, and puffing vigorously, he sat there in his shirt sleeves, and his pen flew swiftly over the sheets of paper that lay before him.
When Mr. Charles and his son entered, the editor laid down his pipe and pen, and rising from his chair, said in the most affable way:
"Ah, I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Charles; and this is your son Henry, of whose ability I have already heard."
Shaking hands with each, he pointed them to seats and resumed his own.
"So Henry is ambitious of embarking on a journalistic career," he remarked, as he lifted his pipe again; adding, "I hope you don't mind my smoking. I find a weed a great incentive to thought."
Mr. Springthorpe always spoke like a leading article, and it was noticed by those who knew him best that on the occasions when his nose was particularly ruddy and his utterance somewhat thick, his flow of language and the stateliness of his words were even more marked than when one could not detect the odour of the tap-room in his vicinity.
"Yes, 'Enry is anxious to get on a noospaper," Mr. Charles replied. "And Mr. Trevor Smith has written this letter about him for you to read."
The editor reached out and took the letter with a great show of interest, reading it carefully, as though it were a document of much importance, while Henry sat fumbling with his hat, conscious that he had again arrived at a critical moment in his career.
"This is very nattering indeed, Mr. Charles," said the editor at length, "and I attach great weight to the opinion of Mr. Trevor Smith, who is an able and promising member of my staff."
"Then you think that 'Enry might suit you?"