“Come in, Mr. Robson,” said he. “It’s quite some time sence you was here.”
“I was ashamed to come,” blurted Jeremy..
“Shucks! Don’t say that. You can’t be responsible for what they order you to write. That’s a reporter’s job.”
“Who says so?”
“Nick Milliken. He says any reporter ’d have to do the same.”
This was a bitter flavoring to the dose. “That is n’t so,” replied Jeremy quietly. “I need n’t have written it; not that way. I need n’t have written it at all.”
The Boot & Shoe Surgeon set down the subject upon which he was operating. “I don’t understand,” he said, puzzled and despondent. “Did you want to do it?”
“That is n’t the question. I did n’t have to do it. If necessary I could have resigned.”
The old man’s face cleared up. “Quit your job? That’d ’a’ been foolish. There was n’t any call for you to do that.”
“Anyhow I’m mighty sorry I ever touched the story. And if I’d known what it was going to do to you”—The old man flinched involuntarily at this reference to the dead glories of his School Board incumbency—“I’d never have touched it in the world.”