Page:Love Insurance - Earl Biggers (1914).djvu/205

180 "A steak," he muttered. "Well done. Mushroom sauce. French fried potatoes. I've always dreamed of running a paper some day. Hurry up with that steak."

"Forget your stomach," said Howe. "If a subordinate may make a suggestion, we must get out a newspaper. Ah, whom have we here?"

A stocky, red-faced man appeared from the inner room and stood regarding them.

"Where's Mears and Elliott?" he demanded.

"On a train, riding far," said O'Neill. "I am the new managing editor. What can I do for you?"

"You can give me four columns of copy for the last page of to-morrow's Mail,"said the stocky man calmly. "I'm foreman of something in there we call a composing-room. Glad to meet you."

"Four columns," mused O'Neill. "Four columns of what?"

The foreman pointed to a row of battered books on a shelf.

"It's been the custom," he said, "to fill up with stuff out of that encyclopedia there."