"How is that?" said Ned.
"Get out a handbill," said Phaeton, "and spread it all over town, offering a reward of one cent for the conviction of the burglar who broke into our office last night and printed an acrostic, of which the following is a fac-simile of a mutilated proof. Then set up this, just as you have it here."
"That's it; that'll make him hop," said Ned. "I'll go to work on it at once."
"But," said I, "it'll make Miss Glidden hop too."
"Let her hop."
"But then perhaps her brother John will call around and make you hop."
"He can't do it," said Ned. "The man that owns a printing-press can make everybody else hop, and nobody can make him hop—unless it is a man that owns another press. Whoever tries to fight a printing-press always gets the worst of it. Father says so, and he knows, for he tried it on the Vindicator when he was running for sheriff and they slandered him."
At this point I explained that Holman had not come there without permission, and that he expected to pay for everything.
"Then why didn't you tell us that before?" said Phaeton.
"I was going to tell you he had been here," said I, "and that he did not want any of us to know what he printed. But when I saw that you had found that out, I thought perhaps, in fairness to him, I ought not to tell you who it was."