“Piffle!” said Alf. “Any one could edit a paper like that old sheet of yours, Joe. It’s most all ads, anyhow.”
It was the last week in March, and Alf, Tom, and Dan and Joe Chambers were clustered around the fireplace in 7 Dudley. The weather had been so mild that over in the heating plant the boilers had been allowed to go out, and to-night, with a northerly March wind rattling the windows, it was decidedly cold in the room; or had been until Alf had lighted a fire in the little grate. Joe Chambers stretched his long legs out and smiled indulgently.
“That’s all right,” he replied, “but I wish you had it to do for awhile. It may seem simple enough to you chaps, but just let me tell you that getting out The Scholiast is no joke.”
“No, it’s a very serious proposition,” murmured Tom, who had been on the verge of slumber several times. “A joke now and then would help it like anything.”
“Of course,” went on Joe, warming to his subject, “I have three fellows to help me, but—well, you see how it is: nobody can know as well as you do just what you want. So, in a way, I have to be pretty nearly the whole thing down there.”
“That ought to please you,” said Alf, gravely.
“I think The Scholiast is a mighty good paper,” remarked Dan. “It’s a heap better than any I’ve seen—any school paper, I mean.” Alf sniffed.
“Why say school paper?” he asked. “Why, The Scholiast has the New York Sun and Herald and everything else beat a mile! It’s the only gen-oo-ine, all-wool, yard-wide journal in existence! Talk about your Danas and your James Gordon Bennetts and—and your Hearsts! Why, they’ll be swallowed in eternal gloom while the name of Joseph Chambers still—er—flares athwart the—the——”
“Oh, shut up, Alf! You talk like one of Joe’s editorials,” said Tom, disgustedly. “After all, it is a pretty good little weekly——”