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JAMES FISBEE.
On Monday morning three men sat in council in the "Herald" office; that is, if staring out of dingy windows in a demented silence may be called sitting in council; that was what Mr.Fisbee and Parker and Ross Schofield were doing.

By almost desperate exertions, these three and Bud Tipworthy had managed to place before the public the issues of the paper for the previous week, unaided by their chief, or, rather, aided by long accounts of his condition and the manner of his mishap; and, in truth, three copies were at that moment in the possession of Dr.Gay, accompanied by a note from Parker warning the surgeon to exhibit them to his patient only as a last resort, as the foreman feared the perusal of them might cause a relapse.
By indiscriminate turns, acting as editors, reporters, and typesetters--and particularly space-writers--the three men had worried out three issues, and part of the fourth (to appear the next morning) was set up; but they had come to the end of their string, and there were various horrid gaps yet to fill in spite of a too generous spreading of advertisements.

Bud Tipworthy had been sent out to besiege Miss Tibbs, all of whose recent buds of rhyme had been hot-housed into inky blossom during the week, and after a long absence the youth returned with a somewhat abrupt quatrain, entitled "The Parisians of Old," which she had produced while he waited--only four lines, according to the measure they meted, which was not regardful of art--less than a drop in the bucket, or, to preserve the figure, a single posy where they needed a bouquet.
Bud went down the rickety outside stairs, and sat on the lowest step, whistling "Wait till the Clouds Roll by, Jenny"; Ross Schofield descended to set up the quatrain, and Fisbee and Parker were left to silence and troubled meditation.
They were seated on opposite sides of Harkless's desk.

Sheets of blank scratch-paper lay before them, and they relaxed not their knit brows.
Now and then, one of them, after gazing vacantly about the room for ten or fifteen minutes, would attack the sheet before him with fiercest energy; then the energy would taper off, and the paragraph halt, the writer peruse it dubiously, then angrily tear off the sheet and hurl it to the floor.