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Later that evening, Mrs. Weyland and her daughter being together upstairs, the former said: "Sharlee, who is this Mr. Queed that you paid so much attention to on the porch this evening?" "Why, don't you know, mother? He is the assistant editor of the Post, and is going to be editor just the minute Mr. West retires.
Half reclining in the nurse's chair, unseeing eyes on the shaded and shuttered window, for the fiftieth time Queed let his mind go back over his days at Mrs. Paynter's, reading them all anew in the light of his staggering knowledge. With three communications of the most fragmentary sort, his father had had his full will of his son.
"What is the matter?" demanded the professorial tones. "Oh, nothing," she said, winking back the tears and trying to smile, apologetically "just silly reasons. I I've spent an hour and ten minutes on a problem here, and it won't come right. I'm sorry I disturbed you." There was a brief silence. Mr. Queed cleared his throat. "You cannot solve your problem?"
West was agreeably contrite; abused himself for a shiftless lackwit who was slated for an unwept grave; promised to call that very day; and, making a memorandum the instant he got back to the office, this time did not fail to keep his word. Not that Mr. Queed had been inconvenienced by the little delay.
Of these things the honorable Post directors were not unmindful. They met on October 10, and upon Colonel Cowles's cordial recommendation, named Mr. Queed assistant editor of the Post at a salary of fifteen hundred dollars per annum. And Mr. Queed accepted the appointment without a moment's hesitation. So far, then, the magnificent boast had been made good. The event fell on a Saturday.
Therefore, on more than one occasion, the Colonel had refused point-blank to prepare articles which his directors wished printed. He always accompanied these refusals with his resignation, which the directors invariably returned to him, thereby abandoning their point. Queed was for the moment editor in the Colonel's stead.
Here was not merely senility, but ignoble and repulsive senility. His father!... his father! O God! How much better to have sprung, as he once believed, from the honest loins of Tim Queed! The young man averted his eyes from the detestable face of his father, and let his thoughts turn inward upon himself.
She closed M.T. Ciceronis Orationes Selectæ, gathered together her other paraphernalia, and then she said suddenly: "I may leave school next week, Mr. Queed. I don't think I'm going to graduate." He looked up, surprised and displeased. "Why on earth do you think that?" "Well, you see, they don't think I'm strong enough to keep up the work right now.
On the contrary, it was only by the promptest work in getting her handkerchief into her mouth that she avoided laughing out loud. The two of them alone in the room and his Silence sign gazing at her like a pasteboard Gorgon! Fifi became more than ever interested in Mr. Queed.
"I mean, you need half an hour to an hour's hardest kind of work right here every day, reg'lar as meals." Queed started as though he had been stung. He cleared his throat nervously. "That's where you got it dead wrong. You can't afford not to take the time. Any doctor'll tell you the same as me, that you'll never finish your book at all at the clip you're hitting now.