letter, quite a pleasant letter, you understand, pointing out the
necessity of being in good time. The machinery of a weekly paper, of
course, cannot run smoothly unless contributors are in good time
with their copy. She is a very sensible woman, and she will
understand, I am sure, if you point it out to her."
The sub-editor nodded.
"And there is just one other thing. I wish you would correct a
slight tendency I have noticed lately in Mr. Asher to be just a
trifle--well, not precisely risky, but perhaps a shade broad in his
humour."
"His what?" said Billy Windsor.
"Mr. Asher is a very sensible man, and he will be the first to
acknowledge that his sense of humour has led him just a little
beyond the bounds. You understand? Well, that is all, I think. Now
I must really be going, or I shall miss my train. Good-bye, Mr.
Windsor."
"Good-bye," said the sub-editor thankfully.
At the door Mr. Wilberfloss paused with the air of an exile bidding
farewell to his native land, sighed, and trotted out.
Billy Windsor put his feet upon the table, and with a deep scowl
resumed his task of reading the proofs of Luella Granville
Waterman's "Moments in the Nursery."
CHAPTER II
BILLY WINDSOR
BILLY WINDSOR had started life twenty-five years before this story
opens on his father's ranch in Wyoming. From there he had gone to a
local paper of the type whose Society column consists of such items
as "Pawnee Jim Williams was to town yesterday with a bunch of other
cheap skates. We take this opportunity of once more informing Jim
that he is a liar and a skunk," and whose editor works with a
revolver on his desk and another in his hip-pocket. Graduating from
this, he had proceeded to a reporter's post on a daily paper in a
Kentucky town, where there were blood feuds and other Southern
devices for preventing life from becoming dull. All this time New
York, the magnet, had been tugging at him. All reporters dream of
reaching New York. At last, after four years on the Kentucky paper,
he had come East, minus the lobe of one ear and plus a long scar
that ran diagonally across his left shoulder, and had worked
