"Colonel Hampton will never take a seat in your office, sir," his caller thundered, greatly emphasizing "Colonel Hampton." And, answering a further look of perplexity in the editor's face that now betrayed a growing anger, he continued jerkily: "We're coming very near to war, sir; this country, our country, against those sickening anti-Christs who bayonet children, rape women, and wantonly torture unto death defenseless men--and boast of it, sir; gloat over it! It'll be our country against that polluted swamp of slimy creatures, sir; and in our country there shall be neither Democrats nor Republicans! Politics be damned, sir! Until those breeders of paresis--those Hohenzollern upstarts who, as God is my witness, are the vomit of hell--shall be stripped of their freedom, you and I cast our vote for Humanity! Amos, I want to take your hand, and I want you to take mine!"
Mr. Strong sprang to his feet and his chair fell heavily to the floor. It was this alarming noise that reached the listening reporter's ear and brought him in haste to his chief's aid; yet when he had pushed open the door, unnoticed by those within, he drew quickly back and tiptoed to his desk. There are some things at which even a reporter may not gaze.
"Do you agree with me that there should and will be war, Roger?" Mr. Strong was saying half an hour later. They were comfortably settled now, with cigars alight, and except for slight traces where tears had marked their cheeks no one would have suspected aught but a lifetime of congeniality.
"Both should and will, Amos! It is one of the few expressions in your columns with which I have thoroughly concurred."
Mr. Strong burst into a merry laugh and waved the handkerchief that was still in his hand, crying:
"So I do, so I do, Amos! We sha'n't open the old wounds again--at least, not so long as our country is in need of cohesion. My anger, I assure you, was never as great as my amazement that one of your talents could--but there, there! I may have been somewhat wrong, also--as a matter of fact, Amos, I shouldn't be surprised if that were so! Tell me of Marian! When is she coming back to us again?"
A look of new pleasure crossed the editor's grizzled face as he answered: