For Alick immediately put the medal in the bottom of his trunk, beneath his "best blacks" which he wore only twice a year at Sacraments.
He had heard that the editor of the "Netherby Chronicle and Advertiser" had collogued with the provost of the town to bring about this "fitting acknowledgment." Now Muckle Alick could not help the thing itself, but he could help people in Netherby getting to hear about it.
Muckle Alick called upon the editor of the "Chronicle." He found him in, and engaged in the difficult task of penning an editorial which would not alienate the most thin-skinned subscriber, but which would yet be calculated to exasperate the editor of the opposition local paper published in the next county.
"Maister Heron," said the head-porter, "I juist looked in to tell ye, that there's nocht to come oot in the 'Chronicle' aboot me the morn."
"But, my dear sir," said the editor, "the item has been specially communicated, and is already set up."
"Then it'll hae to be set doon again!" said Muckle Alick, firmly.
"Impossible, impossible, I do assure you, my dear friend," remonstrated the editor. He was proprietor—editor and proprietor in one. Such editors in agricultural communities are always polite to subscribers.
"But it's no onpossible. It's to be!" said Alick—"or there's no a paper will leave the junction the morn—aye, and there'll no be a paper sell't in this toon eyther."
It was not clear to the editor how Muckle Alick could bring about this result.
"But," said he, tapping the desk with his pen, "my dear sir, the stationmaster—the railway company——"