Page:The Yellow Book - 06.djvu/211

Rh "Master's got a letter from the boss in his box," said he, significantly. As he spoke he tore up his own letter (which was a bill) and threw the pieces on the floor.

Hunt glanced at him keenly. "Has he?" he asked with interest.

"Yes," said Burress, and the two exchanged understanding glances.

"Well," said Hunt crossly, "I expected it. What else was that kid Wilson put on the day-desk for?"

"He'll succeed him, will he?"

"Of course," replied Hunt. "And a pretty time I'll have breaking him in, too. As if I hadn't got enough to do as it is!"

"Pretty tough on the old man, I call it," remarked Burress, idly sympathetic.

"What do you expect in this office?" asked Hunt sarcastically. "Life tenure, high wages, and service pensions? Do you take the boss tor an angel? There isn't any angel in journalism except possibly the one that does the recording. The old man gets precious little; but Wilson'll get less, see? 'The golden exhalations' of this dawn ain't used up in salaries—not to any great extent.

"Dn him," said Burress. This seemingly irrelevant curse was directed against the proprietor. As becomes a conventional expression of an emotion the edge of which habit has dulled, it was delivered without animation. Hunt paid no attention to it, and the reporter, even as he gave it forth, picked up the shears again and began idly to clean his nails. "How'll the old man take it, I wonder," he said at length meditatively.

"Oh, he'll get drunk now, sure."

"Fearful wreck, ain't he," said Burress appreciatively.

"Yes, and he's cracked too," growled the night editor, bending himself over some copy. "I was