"Lyman, you are the best writer I ever saw, but you were not intended for a newspaper man."
"I know that, my boy. If I thought we could sell ten thousand papers I wouldn't print a thing to hurt an old woman."
"Oh, I don't want to hurt an old woman or a young one either," said Warren, "but I look at the principle of the thing. Somebody's hurt every time a paper comes from the press, and if everybody was as tender-hearted as you are, there would be no newspapers after awhile, and then where would we be?"
"We would be slower, less wise, but in many instances more respectable," Lyman replied. He leaned back in his chair, slowly puffing his pipe.
"From the high-grade point of view I reckon you're right," said Warren, raking up the newspapers on the table, "but we can't all live on the high grades. By the way," he added with a laugh, "I walked over to the express office this morning and took my paper out, as if it were a matter of course. The fellow looked at me and sighed, and I thought he was going to say something about the numerous times I had bled under the hob-nailed heel of his company. But he didn't; he asked me to send him the paper, and he paid for it right there. Oh, things are getting pretty bright when trusts and corporations begin to bid for your influence. But what are you going to do with that fellow Sawyer?" he asked, becoming grave, or rather, more serious, for gravity could hardly spread over his lightsome face.
"I don't know," Lyman answered.
"But you can't afford to keep on letting him hurt you; you'll have to hunt him to shut him off."
"Yes, I'll have to do something, but I don't know what it will be. I have met a good many mean men—mean fellows at a saw mill, and I thought that a mean mill man was about the meanest—but Sawyer strikes off somewhat in advance of any meanness I ever encountered."
"Well, don't you get mad? Don't you feel like you want to take a gun and shoot him?"
"Yes, I have all sorts of feelings with regard to him; and sometimes when I awake at night it is a good thing he is not within reach. But I'll try to worry along with him. I don't expect to stay here very much longer."