“Here’s your signed leader, sir; I’ve gingered it a bit too much, perhaps.”
“Haven’t time to look at it; got to catch a train.”
“Shall I tone it down a little?”
“Better perhaps; use your judgment. Sit here, and do it now. Good-bye; back on Friday.”
Reaching for his soft hat, assisted into his coat by Taggart, the chief was gone.
Taggart sat down to pencil the signed leader.
‘Good leader,’ he thought; ‘pity nobody knows I write ’em!’
This devilling was quite an art, and, not unlike art, poorly enough paid. Still, not bad fun feeling you were the pea and the chief only the shell—the chief, with his great name and controlling influence. He finished pencilling, O.K.’d the sheets, thought, ‘Georgie Grebe! what the deuce shall I write about?’ and went back to his room.
It was not much of a room, and there was not much in it except Jimmy Counter, smoking a pipe and writing furiously.
Taggart sat down too, lit his own pipe, took a sheet of paper and scrawled the words ‘Georgie Grebe Article’ across the top.