'Oh—yes!' This 'Oh' was a moan of anguish.
'Good heavens, Hen—you didn't for a minute think we could print it as you wrote it?' Henry's facial muscles moved, but he got no words out. Humphrey, touched, went on. 'I don't mind telling you—between ourselves—that the thing as you wrote it, every word, is the best bit of descriptive writing I've seen this year. But you wrote the real story, boy. You painted the whole Simpson Street bunch as they are—every wart. It's a savage picture. Why, we'd have dropped seventy per cent, of our advertising between Saturday and Monday! And the queer little picture of Charlie Waterhouse out behind the lemonade stand—— Why, boy, that's enough to bust open the town!
With Bob McGibbon gunning for Charlie and demanding an accounting of the town money! Gee!'
Henry seemed hardly to hear this.
'Who—who re-wrote it?'
'I did some. The old man polished it off himself.'
'It's ruined!'
'Of course. But it brought you a raise to twelve a week. That's something.'
'You don't understand. It was my work. And it was true. I wrote the truth.'
'That's why.'