He gave Dan a limp fat hand, and cleared a chair of exchanges with one foot, which he thereupon laboriously restored to its accustomed place on the desk.
"So you're from the 'Courier'?
Well, sir, you may tell your managing editor for me that if he doesn't print more of my stuff he can get somebody else on the job here." Dan soothed Mr.Pettit's feelings as best he could; he confessed that his own best work was mercilessly cut; and that, after all, the editors of city newspapers were poor judges of the essential character of news.
When Pettit's good humor had been restored, Dan broached the nature of his errand.

As he mentioned Morton Bassett's name the huge editor's face grew blank for a moment; then he was shaken with mirth that passed from faint quivers until his whole frame was convulsed.

His rickety chair trembled and rattled ominously.

It was noiseless laughter so far as any vocal manifestations were concerned; but it shook the gigantic editor as though he were a mould of jelly.

He closed his eyes, but otherwise his fat face was expressionless.
"Goin' to write Mort up, are you?
Well, by gum! I've been readin' those pieces in the 'Courier.' Your work?
Good writin'; mighty interestin' readin', as old Uncle Horace Greeley used to say.