246CHAPTER NINETEEN
JOURNALISM
“I’m glad you’re all here. I’m in the deuce of a mess, and I want to be helped out.”
So speaking, Max seated himself upon a porch settee and waited for expressions of sympathy and curiosity from the girls before him. When he had received them, he deigned to give a few details.
“You know, I’m to be editor of the college paper next year, and Morse has promised me all summer that when he went away for two weeks’ vacation, he’d let me take his place. Well, he went last week and I got out the Courier. It was a good number, too. I don’t suppose any of you noticed the difference?”
“I remember hearing father say the editorial was especially good,” said Catherine.
“And I heard Mrs. Tracy bewailing the fact when I went in to see her yesterday, that the paper had lost all its spice, and there wasn’t a single ridiculous item in it, not even a funny typographical mistake, so I’m sure you ought to feel complimented,” said Hannah.
247“It’s true enough, but that’s just where my pickle comes in,” said Max gloomily. “I didn’t tell any one about it, because I wanted to carry it through without any one’s knowing. But the reporter has struck, because I blue-pencilled his notes. He says no college boy is going to tamper with his work, and he’s just calmly left; and what’s worse, his brother has withdrawn an ‘ad’ which means quite a loss for Morse. I see now why Morse let so many things go by!”
“That is a pity!” said Catherine sympathetically, while the others declared themselves in stronger terms. Max looked gratified. “Now what I want of you girls is to help me gather up news and make the next paper better than any issue has been since that young puppy came on it. And I’ll get ‘ads’ enough to offset the brother’s withdrawal, and a new subscription if I have to pay for it myself. I want to leave things in at least as good shape as I found them. Jenkins will come back again as soon as Morse does. He loves to write his wild stuff, and is only willing to stop for a week, because he feels important, acting insulted. Probably thought I’d eat humble pie and raise his salary, too. Why, he had the Ortmeyer-Rawlins wedding fixed out with a scare-head THE WAY OF ALL FLESH! And started it out with a quotation from Shakespeare or somebody about Love looking with the mind, not with the eyes! The bride and all her male 248 relatives would have been down at the office with sticks. She’s a pretty girl, you know!”
“It would have been worse, if she hadn’t been,” said Alice. “What else did you cut out? It sounds like my pupils’ work. I’ll help you blue-pencil. It’s just my line.”
“The other things weren’t funny, just poor constructions and general flatness, personals that were too personal, you know, and that sort of thing. But he had a rhapsody on Dawn all worked up that he wanted to run in, this week. It began: ‘When I arise at daybreak, a thousand quotations surge into my mind!’ The fellow is daft on quoting. He sits with his feet on the desk and reads Bartlett by the hour. Well, I’m rid of him, and I’m looking for substitutes.”