Hanks is out of town, and has left me in full charge; but then that happens frequently nowadays; and, say, some foolish people have gone so far as to say they can tell when he's absent because, well, the paper shows it; but I tell them they are only saying that to flatter me.

Three minutes, boys, and I'll be at your service." Whatever it was Jim was doing on the typewriter, he continued to pound laboriously away for about that length of time.

Then finishing he drew the sheet out, glanced over it, made some corrections, smiled as though highly pleased, and called out to a boy who was working a hand press to come and take it to the lone compositor, standing at his case in a distant corner of the den.
"That'll make folks sit up and take notice I kind of think," said Jim, swelling out his chest with an air of great importance.

"Don't ask me what it is all about, for I want it to be a surprise to the community.

Read it in tomorrow's issue of the _Weekly Courier_.
Now, what can I do for you, Thad, old scout?
Anything connected with the Scranton High baseball team you want written up for next week?
I'm always ready to favor the boys, because I used to play ball myself away back." Hugh would have liked to laugh, but he refrained, not wishing to offend Jim, who was evidently suffering from an overweening sense of his own importance, since he had graduated into a temporary occupancy of the editorial chair.