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Myers for this act of kindness. Mr. Myers assured Mrs. Wilbram that it would mean no trouble at all; he would send up the order as soon as his boy came back from delivering a beefsteak to the Mortimer Trevelyans. He filled out a slip and stuck it on the hook. "Now, Mr. Downey," he said briskly. But Jacob Downey gave him one tremendous look and limped out of the shop.
"I wonder, Oakes," said Wilbram, "that a dignified newspaper like yours would print such trash, in the first place." Worthington Oakes looked down his nose. D.K.T. took up the challenge. "Trash, sir? If it's trash, why has the Ashland Telephone asked permission to reprint it on the front cover of their next directory?" "Have they asked that?"
With the publisher, in the front office, sat A. Lincoln Wilbram, quite purple in the cheeks. They had a file of the Bee before them. "Diedrick," said Mr. Oakes, "on March eighteenth you printed this thing" his finger on Willie's essay "why did you do it?" "What's the matter with it?" replied D.K.T. "The matter with it," spoke Mr. Wilbram terribly, "is that it slanders my wife.
The A. Lincoln Wilbram prize went to a small boy named Aaron Levinsky whose English was 99 per cent. pure. Little Aaron's essay was printed as the centre-piece in Wilbram, Prescott & Co.'s page in the Bee; little Aaron invested his gold in thrift-stamps, and the tumult and the shouting died. Miss Angelina Lance sat alone every evening of the week. True, Mr.
Wilbram one evening: "It is the strangest thing. In the last month I've met scarcely a soul who hasn't asked me silly questions about Mudge and his diet. Mrs. Trevelyan and everybody. And they always look so queer." Mr. Wilbram was reminded that while coming home that evening with a package in his hand he had met Trevelyan, and Trevelyan had inquired: "What's that? A bone for the dog?"
"There is no use approaching him with a literary contract?" "Not with the baseball season just opening. His team beat the Watersides yesterday, sixteen nothing. He has more important business on hand than writing for newspapers." Since Sloan wrote for a newspaper, this was rather a dig. Nevertheless, he persevered. "A. Lincoln Wilbram is on his trail. Do you know that Willie libelled Mrs.
"Yeowp!" responded the chow dog, and leaped in air. "Don't be alarmed," spoke a voice out of the gloom of the nearest lawn. "When he sees a man with a stick, he wants to play." Sloan peered at the speaker's face. "Isn't this Mr. Wilbram? You were at the Bee office to-day, sir. May I have a word with you about the Willie Downey matter?" "Come in," said Mr. Wilbram.
Isn't there a man in the city-room now offering me fifteen thousand a year to write a daily screed like it?" "You can see, Wilbram," said Mr. Oakes, "that there was no intention to injure or annoy. We are very sorry; but how can we print an apology to Mrs. Wilbram without making the matter worse?" "Who is this Willie Downey?" demanded Wilbram. "And who is the school teacher?"
"How many men have been promoted over your head?" "Three." "Four," Wilbram corrected. "First was Miggins." "I don't count him, sir. Him and I started together." "Miggins was a failure. Then Farisell; now in prison. Next, McCardy; he ran off to Simonds & Co. the minute they crooked a finger at him. Last, young Prescott, who is now to come up here with his father.
"I found out when I went to them, on the night it came out in the paper. They were woefully frightened. They are frightened still. Mr. Downey has worked for Mr. Wilbram since he was a boy. They think of Mr. Wilbram almost as a god. It's it's a tragedy, Sam, to them." "Would it do any good to warn them?" "They need no warning," said Miss Angelina. "Don't add to their terrors."
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