"Flossy is very sick," he said with lips that quivered, "and I will have to trust you boys."
Jap followed him to the door. His face was downcast.
"Is it true, Ellis? Bill said that Flossy would—would——" He gulped. He could not finish. Ellis turned suddenly and sat down at the table and buried his face in the pile of exchanges. His body shook with the effort to suppress his emotion. Bill slipped down from his stool and the two awkward, ungainly youths looked at each other in embarrassed sorrow. Finally Jap laid an inky hand on Ellis's shoulder.
"Tell her—tell her," he stuttered, "that Bill and me are—are a—prayin'."
Ellis gave a mighty sob and rushed away, bare-headed.
The two apprentices sat at their cases, the tears wetting the type in their sticks. The long day dragged by. Neither of them remembered noon, but plodded stolidly and silently through the clippings on their copy hooks.
It was growing dusk when a great commotion arose. It seemed to come from the corner near Blanke's drug store. It gathered force as it neared Granger's bank, Now it had reached the mouth of the alley that separated the bank from the Herald office. There was cheering and laughter. Jap's face hardened. He slung one leg to the floor. How dared any one cheer or laugh, when Flossy lay dying?
In another instant Ellis burst into the room. His dark locks were rumpled, his eyes wild and bright.
"Get out all the roosters—and the stallions, too!" he shouted. "Open a can of vermilion and, in long pica, double-lead it: 'It is a boy!'"
Jap let the other leg fall and dragged himself around. His mouth had fallen loose on its hinges. He sat down on the floor and gaped foolishly at Ellis.