"Thanks," O'Neill answered. He took down a book. "We'll fix you up in ten minutes. Mr. Howe, will you please do me two columns on—er—mulligatawny—murder—mushrooms. That's it. On mushrooms. The life-story of the humble little mushroom. I myself will dash off a column or so on the climate of Algeria."
The foreman withdrew, and Howe and O'Neill stood looking at each other.
"Once," said O'Neill, "I ran an editorial page in Boston, where you can always fill space by printing letters from citizens who wish to rewrite Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and do it right. But I never struck anything like this before."
"Me either," said Howe. "Mushrooms, did you say?"
They sat down before typewriters.
"One thing worries me," remarked O'Neill. "If we'd asked the president of the First National Bank for jobs, do you suppose we'd be in charge there now?"
"Write, man, write," said Howe. The clatter of their fingers on the keys filled the room.
