The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1895-05-08

g The next afternoon they we're back
at the Office two hours before the usual
time. The foreman caught one rooster
and the proof-reader the other, and
they took them over in the corner be
hind the imposing stones. They had
previously sent the devil down to Mr..
Greeley's room to get dozen sheets of
the paper he always wrote on. These
they spread on the floor in the form of
a square, carefully linked the feet of the
fowls, and set them to fighting on the
copy paper. They had just had meal
of cockroaches, and they went at each
other savagely. Every two or three
ink the bottoms of their feet, and toss
them into the ring again. AT the end
of twenty minutes every sheet of the
paper was covered with their tracks,
and the foreman gathered up the pages,
numbered them, and scrawed head
on the first one, The Plain Duty of
Congress- in imitation of Greeley's
hand, marked the whole BREWER
Double Lead and hung it on the copy
hook.
Pretty soon the men began to drop
in, but they had all heard of the game
that was on, and picked around the ar
ticle. After a while Larkway came
numbering along. He had just made
new pipe out of the biggest ear of corn
ever raised in Cayuga county, and
particularly crooked pigs tail from
Brattleboro, Vermont, and seemed un-
usually pert. He started the conhagra-
ton in his pipe, put on his spectacles,
and walked to the hook.
"Hey? You fellows still soldering,
amt your he cried. Still afraid of the
old mans stuff, hey? Can't rastle it,
can your Had to leave it for old Lark.
way, didn't you? Well, that's all right;
l like it.. You do me a favor when you
leave it for me-
ale took it, walked over and slammed
it down on the upper case, planted
handful of leads on the bottom of it,
and picked up his stick. Every man in
the room held his sides, and watched to
see the old fossil fabbergasted but, by
the Goddess of Truth, he began to
set it!
eyes, Larkway started to set it. AT
the end of the second line he began to
look little troubled, laid down his
stick, and we thought our moment of
victory was come; but he only swore
little, knocked the ashes out of his
pipe, refilled it, lit it with husk strip
ped from the outside, picked up his
stick, and went on. You could have
packed every one of us in a hat-boX
The old cave -dweller worked on, and
never looked up again until he got al
most TO the bottom of the last page.
Here he stuck, on a place where one of
the roosters had slapped down the edge
of his wing, also inky. Larkway
studied over it for long time, then he
said to the foreman:
"'Darn it, the best of us get hung up
on word once in while. WHAT'S
that down there?'
"' Don't ask me- said the foreman.
You know l can't read that stuff. Go
down and ask the old man himself
Larkway shuffled out with long
face, carrying his pipe in one hand and
the copy in the other. He went into
the chiefs room, and said, in low
tone: Mr. Greeley, Pm stuck. What
is that word?'
"Greeley snatched the sheet from his
hand impatiently, studied it moment,
and then squeaked, in his highest voice:
GO Unconstitutional sir. Great
Jehoshaphat! it seems to me sometimes
as if this office was full of pesky college
graduates, and after I've given the
janitor strict orders not to allow one of
'em in the building! '"-Hayden Car
ruth, in Harper's Magazine.