Mark Tidd, Editor Part 2

"You can be a.s.sistant b-business manager," says Mark.

"a.s.sistant?" says I. "Who's the real thing?"

"Me," says Mark.

"Huh!" says I.

"You're a reporter, too," says he. "You and Plunk and T-Tallow."

"What's my job?" says Tallow.

"You're a-a-a.s.sistant foreman of the pressroom," says Mark.

"Huh! Who's foreman?"

"Me," says Mark.

"What job have you got that I can be a.s.sistant to?" says Plunk.

"You're a.s.sistant circulation manager," says he.

"All we got to do is be those things you've said, and reporters besides?" says I.

"That, and hustle for ads., and help run the press, and fold papers, and learn to set type, and clean up, and help l-l-lick folks that come in to l-lick the editor, and run the job press, and collect money, and get subscribers, and d-d-drum up printin' jobs. When you hain't got anythin'

else to d-do, you can be l-lookin' for news."

"Too much loafin' about this to suit me," says Tallow.

"Say," says Plunk, "how _does_ a newspaper make money, anyhow?"

"It d-don't," says Mark. "Anyhow old Rogers always said so; but it t-tries to make money by gettin' folks to subscribe, and by havin'

f-folks advertise, and by doin' printin' jobs-like tickets for the Congregational Young Ladies' Auxiliary Annual Chicken-Pie Supper."

"How many subscribers did the _Trumpet_ have when it busted?" says I.

"Hunderd and t-twenty-six," says Mark. "And listen to this, you f-fellows, we've got to have a thousand."

"Huh!" says I. "You'll have to git a few dozen fam'lies to move in first."

"Yes," says Plunk, "and about that type-settin'-who's goin' to teach it to us?"

Mark scratched his head at that. Who _was_ going to teach us how to do it? But that was a worry that didn't last long. We found a bridge to cross that difficulty and the name of it was Tec.u.mseh Androcles Spat. He came in through the door that very minute.

He looked like Abraham Lincoln in his shirtsleeves. Tall he was, and bony, and he hadn't any coat on, and he did have one of those old flat-brimmed silk hats.

He looked at us a moment and then says:

"Do I find myself standing in the editorial sanctum of one of those bulwarks of liberty and free speech-the local newspaper?"

"Right on the edge of it," says Mark.

"Where then, may I ask, is that great and good man, the editor?"

Mark sort of puffed out his chest and looked important.

"I am the editor," says he.

The tall man looked sort of taken back, but just the same he took off his hat with a sweep.

"I greet you sir," he said. "You see before you no less a person than Tec.u.mseh Androcles Spat. From my earliest youth the smell of printer's ink has been in my nose. My services have been sought, obtained, and finally dispensed with in no less than one hundred and seventy-four printing establishments. I desire to round out the number and make it a full century and three-quarters. Therefore, I apply to you for employment."

"Can you set type?" says Mark, beginning to look cheerful.

"Stick type? Can Tec.u.mseh Androcles Spat stick type? My young friend, my first tooth was cut on a quoin; I learned my letters at the case; at the immature age of seven-an infant prodigy, with all modesty I say it-I could set the most complicated display. To-day, in my maturity, you perceive me unrivaled in my profession. I am the Compleat Printer."

"You can have a j-job," says Mark, "but I dunno if you'll ever get your wages."

"No matter, no matter. I am accustomed to that. Give me but a corner to slumber in, food for my stomach, tobacco for my pipe, and my soul is at peace."

"You're hired," says Mark.

"Where's your coat?" says I.

"In useful service, my young friend. It hangs from crossed sticks in the midst of a garden patch a mile or more away. It was a lovely garden patch wherein grew peas, string-beans, luscious cabbages, fragrant onions. But it was being destroyed. The birds of the air descended upon it in thousands. I looked, I comprehended. What a pity, said I. So, to avert further depredations, I stripped my coat, hung it from crossed sticks, and stood it in the midst of the garden patch. The garden needed it worse than I. Each time I gaze upon my uncoated arms I say to myself, 'Tec.u.mseh Androcles Spat is doing his part to preserve the nation's food.'"

"He talks like he was a lot educated," says Plunk.

Tec.u.mseh Androcles overheard him. "Educated. Ah, indeed. Have I not in my day set type for every page of Goober's Grammar, Mills's Spelling Book, to say nothing of histories, philosophies, dictionaries. But most important of all, almanacs. Young gentlemen, I have set no less than ten almanacs from beginning to end. What university, I ask you, can equip you with the facts contained in a family almanac?"

"You'll n-n-need all you know around here," Mark says, with a grin. "We just bought this p-paper at sheriff's sale, and we've got the whole business to learn."

"Good! Splendid! You're in luck. Tec.u.mseh Androcles Spat is the man to teach you. Where'll I begin?"

"You might go out in the shop and l-look around. Sort of get the lay of the land," says Mark.

He hung his silk hat on a hook and, in the most pompous, dignified way you ever saw, he stalked out into the press-room.

"Now for b-business," says Mark. "First thing 's to get some s-subscribers. Folks'll take the _Trumpet_ if they know it's goin' to amount to s-somethin'. We've got to tell 'em."

"How?" says I.

"By talkin' it, singin' it, w-whistlin' it and p-playin' it on your mouth-organ," says Mark, with a grin. "Also by printin' it. We'll get out some hand-bills-and some bigger bills to stick on fences and things.

I'll get up the bills. While I'm doin' it you fellows go out and see what you can l-learn from Tec.u.mseh Androcles."

So Mark sat down to his desk and got a pencil and commenced scratching his head. The rest of us went out into the other room-and there was Mr.

Tidd and Tec.u.mseh Androcles in a regular old argument. Both of them had forgot all about working.

"'Tain't so," Mr. Tidd said, as loud and excited as he was capable of.

"There hain't no book got more solid and useful knowledge in it than Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_. It's better 'n the whole kit and bundle of the rest of the books in the nation."