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“Andy,” he said, sadly and impressively, “if I have written that story once, I have written it twenty times. I have described Moyamensing with the moonlight falling on its walls; I have described it with the walls shining in the rain; I have described it covered with the pure white snow that falls on the just as well as on the criminal; and I have made the bloodhounds in the jail-yard howl dismally–and there are no bloodhounds, as you very well know; and I have made released convicts declare their intention to lead a better and a purer life, when they only said, ‘If youse put anything in the paper about me, I’ll lay for you;’ and I have made them fall on the necks of their weeping wives, when they only asked, ‘Did you bring me some tobacco? I’m sick for a pipe;’ and I will not write any more about it; and if I do, I will do it here in the office, and that is all there is to it.”

“Oh yes, I think you will,” said the city editor, easily.

“Let some one else do it,” Bronson pleaded–“some one who hasn’t done the thing to death, who will get a new point of view–” Conway, who had stopped writing, and had been grinning at Bronson over the city editor’s back, grew suddenly grave and absorbed, and began to write again with feverish industry. “Conway, now, he’s great at that sort of thing. He’s–“

The city editor laid a clipping from the morning paper on the desk, and took a roll of bills from his pocket.

“There’s the preliminary story,” he said. “Conway wrote it, and it moved several good people to stop at the business office on their way down-town and leave something for the released convict’s Christmas dinner. The story is a very good story, and impressed them,” he went on, counting out the bills as he spoke, “to the extent of fifty five dollars. You take that and give it to him, and tell him to forget the past, and keep to the narrow road, and leave jointed jimmies alone. That money will give you an excuse for talking to him, and he may say something grateful to the paper, and comment on its enterprise. Come, now, get up. I’ve spoiled you two boys. You’ve been sulking all the evening because Conway got that story, and now you are sulking because you have got a better one. Think of it–getting out of prison after four years, and on Christmas Eve! It’s a beautiful story just as it is. But,” he added, grimly, “you’ll try to improve on it, and grow maudlin. I believe sometimes you’d turn a red light on the dying gladiator.”

The conscientiously industrious Conway, now that his fear of being sent out again was at rest, laughed at this with conciliatory mirth, and Bronson smiled sheepishly, and peace was restored between them.

But as Bronson capitulated, he tried to make conditions. “Can I take a cab?” he asked.

The city editor looked at his watch. “Yes,” he said; “you’d better; it’s late, and we go to press early to-night, remember.”

“And can I send my stuff down by the driver and go home?” Bronson went on. “I can write it up there, and leave the cab at Fifteenth Street, near our house. I don’t want to come all the way down-town again.”

“No,” said the chief; “the driver might lose it, or get drunk, or something.”

“Then can I take Gallegher with me to bring it back?” asked Bronson. Gallegher was one of the office-boys.

The city editor stared at him grimly. “Wouldn’t you like a type-writer, and Conway to write the story for you, and a hot supper sent after you?” he asked.

“No; Gallegher will do,” Bronson said.

Gallegher had his overcoat on and a night-hawk at the door when Bronson came down the stairs and stopped to light a cigar in the hallway.