“Oh, I supposed you evening-paper gents went to bed with the hens. What has kept you up, esteemed contemporary?” He went on working over some despatches which lay upon his table.
“Don't you want to come out and have some oysters?” asked Bartley.
“Why this princely hospitality? I'll come with you in half a minute,” Ricker said, going to the slide that carried up the copy to the composing-room and thrusting his manuscript into the box.
“Where are you going?” he asked, when they found themselves out in the soft starlit autumnal air; and Bartley answered with the name of an oyster-house, obscure, but of singular excellence.
“Yes, that's the best place,” Ricker commented. “What I always wonder at in you is the rapidity with which you Ve taken on the city. You were quite in the green wood when you came here, and now you know your Boston like a little man. I suppose it's your newspaper work that's familiarized you with the place. Well, how do you like your friend Witherby, as far as you've gone?”
“Oh, we shall get along, I guess,” said Bartley. “He still keeps me in the background, and plays at being editor, but he pays me pretty well.”
“Not too well, I hope.”
“I should like to see him try it.”
“I shouldn't,” said Ricker. “He'd expect certain things of you, if he did. You'll have to look out for Witherby.”
“You mean that he's a scamp?”