LITMIR.BIZ

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do it. But how could I?"

      "You've probably answered the whole business," said Doremus. "If a man is going to assume the right to tell several thousand readers what's what—most agreeable, hitherto—he's got a kind of you might say priestly obligation to tell the truth. 'O cursed spite.' Well! I think I'll drop into the office again. Home about midnight. Don't sit up, anybody—and Sissy, and you, Julian, that particularly goes for you two night prowlers! As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord—and in Vermont, that means going to bed."

      "And alone!" murmured Sissy.

      "Why—Cecilia—Jes-sup!"

      As Doremus trotted out, Foolish, who had sat adoring him, jumped up, hoping for a run.

      Somehow, more than all of Emma's imploring, the dog's familiar devotion made Doremus feel what it might be to go to prison.

      He had lied. He did not return to the office. He drove up the valley to the Tavern and to Lorinda Pike.

      But on the way he stopped in at the home of his son-in-law, bustling young Dr. Fowler Greenhill; not to show him the proof but to have—perhaps in prison?—another memory of the domestic life in which he had been rich. He stepped quietly into the front hall of the Greenhill house—a jaunty imitation of Mount Vernon; very prosperous and secure, gay with the brass-knobbed walnut furniture and painted Russian boxes which Mary Greenhill affected. Doremus could hear David (but surely it was past his bedtime?—what time did nine-year-old kids go to bed these degenerate days?) excitedly chattering with his father, and his father's partner, old Dr. Marcus Olmsted, who was almost retired but who kept up the obstetrics and eye-and-ear work for the firm.

      Doremus peeped into the living room, with its bright curtains of yellow linen. David's mother was writing letters, a crisp, fashionable figure at a maple desk complete with yellow quill pen, engraved notepaper, and silver-backed blotter. Fowler and David were lounging on the two wide arms of Dr. Olmsted's chair.

      "So you don't think you'll be a doctor, like your dad and me?" Dr. Olmsted was quizzing.

      David's soft hair fluttered as he bobbed his head in the agitation of being taken seriously by grown-ups.

      "Oh—oh—oh yes, I would like to. Oh, I think it'd be slick to be a doctor. But I want to be a newspaper, like Granddad. That'd be a wow! You said it!"

      ("Da-vid! Where you ever pick up such language!")

      "You see, Uncle-Doctor, a doctor, oh gee, he has to stay up all night, but an editor, he just sits in his office and takes it easy and never has to worry about nothing!"

      That moment, Fowler Greenhill saw his father-in-law making monkey faces at him from the door and admonished David, "Now, not always! Editors have to work pretty hard sometimes—just think of when there's train wrecks and floods and everything! I'll tell you. Did you know I have magic power?"

      "What's 'magic power,' Daddy?"

      "I'll show you. I'll summon your granddad here from misty deeps—"

      ("But will he come?" grunted Dr. Olmsted.)

      "—and have him tell you all the troubles an editor has. Just make him come flying through the air!"

      "Aw, gee, you couldn't do that, Dad!"

      "Oh, can't I!" Fowler stood solemnly, the overhead lights making soft his harsh red hair, and he windmilled his arms, hooting, "Presto—vesto—adsit—Granddad Jes-sup—voilà!"

      And there, coming through the doorway, sure enough was Granddad Jessup!

      Doremus remained only ten minutes, saying to himself, "Anyway, nothing bad can happen here, in this solid household." When Fowler saw him to the door, Doremus sighed to him, "Wish Davy were right—just had to sit in the office and not worry. But I suppose some day I'll have a run-in with the Corpos."

      "I hope not. Nasty bunch. What do you think, Dad? That swine Shad Ledue told me yesterday they wanted me to join the M.M.'s as medical officer. Fat chance! I told him so."

      "Watch out for Shad, Fowler. He's vindictive. Made us rewire our whole building."

      "I'm not scared of Captain General Ledue or fifty like him! Hope he calls me in for a bellyache some day! I'll give him a good sedative—potassium of cyanide. Maybe I'll some day have the pleasure of seeing that gent in his coffin. That's the advantage the doctor has, you know! G'-night, Dad! Sleep tight!"

      A good many tourists were still coming up from New York to view the colored autumn of Vermont, and when Doremus arrived at the Beulah Valley Tavern he had irritably to wait while Lorinda dug out extra towels and looked up tram schedules and was polite to old ladies who complained that there was too much—or not enough—sound from the Beulah River Falls at night. He could not talk to her apart until after ten. There was, meanwhile, a curious exalted luxury in watching each lost minute threaten him with the approach of the final press time, as he sat in the tea room, imperturbably scratching through the leaves of the latest Fortune.

      Lorinda led him, at ten-fifteen, into her little office—just a roll-top desk, a desk chair, one straight chair, and a table piled with heaps of defunct hotel-magazines. It was spinsterishly neat yet smelled still of the cigar smoke and old letter files of proprietors long since gone.

      "Let's hurry, Dor. I'm having a little dust-up with that snipe Nipper." She plumped down at the desk.

      "Linda, read this proof. For tomorrow's paper. . . . No. Wait. Stand up."

      "Eh?"

      He himself took the desk chair and pulled her down on his knees. "Oh, you!" she snorted, but she nuzzled her cheek against his shoulder and murmured contentedly.

      "Read this, Linda. For tomorrow's paper. I think I'm going to publish it, all right—got to decide finally before eleven—but ought I to? I was sure when I left the office, but Emma was scared—"

      "Oh, Emma! Sit still. Let me see it." She read quickly. She always did. At the end she said emotionlessly, "Yes. You must run it. Doremus! They've actually come to us here—the Corpos—it's like reading about typhus in China and suddenly finding it in your own house!"

      She rubbed his shoulder with her cheek again, and raged, "Think of it! That Shad Ledue—and I taught him for a year in district school, though I was only two years older than he was—and what a nasty bully he was, too! He came to me a few days ago, and he had the nerve to propose that if I would give lower rates to the M.M.'s—he sort of hinted it would be nice of me to serve M.M. officers free—they would close their eyes to my selling liquor here, without a license or anything! Why, he had the inconceivable nerve to tell me, and condescendingly! my dear—that he and his fine friends would be willing to hang out here a lot! Even Staubmeyer—oh, our 'professor' is blossoming out as quite a sporting character! And when I chased Ledue out, with a flea in his ear—Well, just this morning I got a notice that I have to appear in the county court tomorrow—some complaint from my endearing partner, Mr. Nipper—seems he isn't satisfied with the division of our work here—and honestly, my darling, he never does one blame thing but sit around and bore my best customers to death by telling what a swell hotel he used to have in Florida. And Nipper has taken his things out of here and moved into town. I'm afraid I'll have an unpleasant time, trying to keep from telling him what I think of him, in court."

      "Good Lord! Look, sweet, have you got a lawyer for it?"

      "Lawyer? Heavens no! Just a misunderstanding—on little Nipper's part."

      "You'd better. The Corpos are using the courts for all sorts of graft and for accusations of sedition. Get Mungo Kitterick, my lawyer."

      "He's dumb. Ice water in his veins."

      "I know, but he's a tidier-up, like so many lawyers. Likes to see everything all neat in pigeonholes. He may not care a damn for justice, but he'll be awfully pained by any irregularities. Please get him, Lindy, because they've got Effingham Swan presiding at court tomorrow."

      "Who?"

      "Swan—the

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