IV

They were still together, fido behaving perfectly, when at nine o’clock that evening Capuchin distinctly remembered Dwind. He was found at the hotel in possession of the bridal suite. He had already dismissed two stenographers and was with weary heroism controlling an impulse to perform a bodily injury upon the third. What restrained him was the fact that he had exhausted the stock. There was not another one in town. In the agony of creative labor he became slightly demented. Afterward he might be very ill and looked forward to it. He was lying deep in a sofa on the back of his neck, one leg drawn up, the other resting on its knee, blood flowing by gravity to the brain cells.

Without greeting Capuchin he complained with the privileged petulance of the sick, “There isn’t a book in your whole God damn town.”

“There’s a library at the state house,” said Capuchin.

Dwind gnashed his teeth and shuddered.

“What book do you need?” Capuchin asked.

“One of those old shoes in your private bookcase. That might be it,” said Dwind.

The place was already littered with books. Every chair had books on it; the bed was piled with them. The wonder was where he had got them. The stenographer was standing, note-book in hand, extremely distraught.

“Read that last paragraph,” said Dwind.

The stenographer read it.

“Delete it,” said Dwind. “No, don’t delete it. Mark it not to go there but in another place when we come to it.... Give me that green book.... Please open the window an inch and a half... from the top.... Thank you.... Mr. Capuchin, either be seated or go away.... No, don’t go away. I need some information. Your constitution is a muddle at the crucial point. You’ve got to change it and I shall have to know beforehand how you are going to do it.... Listen to what I am dictating and you will see. (To the stenographer.) ‘Section nine,’ colon, if you know what a colon is. (Starting as from pain.) Now what!... Inscrutable God, now what!”

It was a loud rapping on the door. Semicorn opened it.

The person who entered was the man from whom Capuchin had bought “The Northwestern Herald” several hours before. His movements were quick and apprehensive; his eyes were like the ant’s and his voice was low and confidential. If he had come to tell them the hotel was burning he would have imparted that information in a guarded manner.

“They told me downstairs I’d find you here,” he said to Capuchin, hardly above a whisper.

“That’s their business downstairs,” said Capuchin. “They know everything. That’s why they run a hotel so badly.”

“I know,” said the ant. “That so, too. It seemed important. I wouldn’t think it professional etiquette not to tell you in time. Still, it’s your own private business I’m meddling with.”

“Tell me what?” Capuchin asked.

“Unless of course you meant to suspend the paper,” said the ant.

“What is it, man? You’ll back into yourself if you are not careful. What is it?”

It was only that when the editorial men of “The Northwestern Herald” learned to whom the paper had been sold, as they did at once, though it wasn’t meant for anybody to know for a day or two, they walked out in a body—the managing editor, all the subordinate editors and all the reporters, save the police reporter who was drunk. There was nobody there to get the paper out, and it was already past nine o’clock.

Having disclosed this extraordinary secret, and in very few words when he came to it, the ant let himself out of the door, closed it gently, and was gone.

Capuchin took up his hat.

“Just a minute,” said Dwind, with a faint, imperious gesture of his wan hand. “I’m under no contract with this one-ring circus. I’m serving it for nothing and all I ask is the courtesy of your attention at this point. I might still be standing out there in the street for that matter. If you are not interested in this thing, neither am I.”

“Could it possibly wait until morning?” asked Capuchin.

“Not possibly,” said Dwind. “If it waits until morning I shall be gone.”

Capuchin was distracted. He was in haste for the banking law. He should not know where else to turn for that piece of Greek. Moreover, if Dwind should go back in a tantrum, thinking he had been ill treated, the effect might be disastrous to further relations with Jones Street.

Turning suddenly he asked, “Mr. Semicorn, did I hear you say or did somebody tell me you once ran a newspaper.”

“I got out an I. W. W. sheet in Seattle for a year,” said Semicorn.

“Good!” said Capuchin. “You get over there and take charge until I come. Only for a few minutes... Now then, Mr. Dwind. Pardon me. What do you say is the matter with the Constitution of New Freedom?”

“‘Section nine,’ colon,” said Dwind to the stenographer, beginning to dictate.

Capuchin did not see the point when it came. Dwind, with suffering of patience, explained it to him; and when he could not help seeing it he began to demur on the ground of political expediency. For some reason he could not clearly state, he did not wish to amend the constitution. The question was how to get public funds into the bank. Capuchin thought it could be done by statute—by a simple law. Dwind said it had to be in the constitution. So they argued it, both insisting. Disputation intoxicated Capuchin, made him slightly delirious, so that he became insensible of time and place. Dwind’s vitality was amazing. He lay perfectly inert, using only enough physical energy to make his words audible and to play with his glasses in a scholarly manner. Holding his mind to the point, he defined it over and over in the same words, with a feeble, expiring voice, but with a doggedness that in the end wore Capuchin down.

“All right, Mr. Dwind, a-l-l right,” he said. “We have to play with your sticks or go home.”

Then he looked at the time. It was two o’clock. He remembered Semicorn, “The Northwestern Herald,” the situation there, and set off in haste to see what had happened, expecting the worst.

What could Semicorn have done? No assistants, no editors, one drunk reporter. Probably there was no paper.

As he came within sight of the building he was relieved to see it lighted. At least they were trying. Coming nearer, he heard the press running. A truck stood at the curb receiving bundled papers from the mailing room as if everything were normal. This was too good.

It occurred to him then that Semicorn was a very reckless young man. What if he had filled the paper with his violent I. W. W. notions! Capuchin’s idea for the paper was to face it about gently. It was an important property with a good deal of influence upon public opinion in the state, especially conservative opinion, and that was what he wished to reach. He had even thought of not bringing it over openly to the Freeman’s League, holding it neutral instead, until some crisis occurred. None of this had he said to Semicorn.

Restraining an impulse to snatch a paper from the mailing room and look at it, he ran up the stairway to the editorial room on the second floor and arrived there breathless, in a panic.

It was one large room full of dimness and tranquillity. The dimness was an effect of the lighting, which was individual to each desk, under green glass shades. The tranquillity, like a convalescense, was that which settles in a newspaper office when the last form is closed, thirty is on the hook and the night’s deed is done. The telegraph operator was locking up his typewriter. Seven men were sitting at small flat-top desks, smoking and reading the paper—seven besides Semicorn, who was at a roll-top desk in the far corner with his head down, writing.

Capuchin fumbled at the latch of the railing gate, let himself through, and hurried to Semicorn’s desk.

“You got her out,” he said. “Mr. Dwind kept me there forever. What’s it like?”

Semicorn handed him a paper and went on writing. Capuchin sat down with it at the nearest desk, looked at the front page, at the back page, then ran through it nervously and stopped at the editorial page. All at a glance as it should be. The news was displayed in the usual manner. The headlines were in the conventional style of verbless obscurity. There were two editorials. One was about the weather and the other was on the need for a city park.

“Where did you get these?” Capuchin asked, pointing to them.

“Found them already in type. Left over,” said Semicorn.

“Good!” said Capuchin. “I was afraid——”

“Yes,” said Semicorn. “I know what you were afraid of.”

Capuchin regarded him with new interest. He was not such a reckless young man. On the contrary, he was remarkably self-possessed. Almost too much that way.

“It looks like a fine job, Mr. Semicorn. A very neat performance, all facts considered. I’m wondering how you did it.”

“Standing on my head,” said Semicorn.

Capuchin looked around the room.

“Where did you get these men?”

“Three from the composing-room. The rest I picked up.”

“Picked them up,” said Capuchin. “They were standing on the galleys, like the editorials, perhaps. Where did you pick them up?”

“They were men I happened to know,” said Semicorn.

“Here in this town? But you were with me all day.”

“Two I met in the crowd that came over from the station with us,” said Semicorn. “You were too busy to notice us.”

“I see,” said Capuchin. He surveyed the seven silent men, all smoking and reading. Two were within hearing; they seemed not to be listening.

“Men like yourself?” he said, regarding Semicorn in a significant manner.

“More or less,” said Semicorn. “A lot of them out here.” Seeing that Capuchin was uneasy he added: “They’re all right. Because they’ve worked on I. W. W. sheets like I have is no reason they can’t do a regular job. Most of them have.”

Capuchin dropped that subject and turned again to the paper. This time he went through it carefully and saw at the top of the editorial page a line of strong black type he had missed before: “Lafe Semicorn, editor.”

He was hotly displeased.

This was not self-possession in Semicorn. It was a bold stroke. And the advantage went with it. How should he undo it; that was, provided he should wish to undo it? Editors cannot be changed every morning like the date line. To take the name down would make the paper ludicrous; but to leave it there would be to accept the young man’s audacity. There was no middle way. His displeasure increased with the difficulty. Semicorn, who had been watching him, came and threw one leg over a corner of the desk.

“I thought we’d better tack a name to the masthead,” he said. “I didn’t suppose you wanted yours there.”

Capuchin stood up and brushed himself carefully all over before speaking.

“I have only this to say, Mr. Semicorn.... No, of course, I didn’t want mine there.... I have only to say this. You are stepping strong. You are stepping very strong, Mr. Semicorn.”

Semicorn was silent. It was necessary for Capuchin to speak again. “But I’m fair to say it was a good journeyman job. That stands up.... Are you at the hotel?”

“Not yet,” said Semicorn. “I haven’t had time.”

“You’ll find a room there. Please come to my office at nine. Then we’ll talk things over.”

“A l l-r i g h t-sir,” said Semicorn, easily and equally, as one sir to another.