The boy editor; a story for boys and girls

Contents

I. The Problem i

III. The Editor-in-Chief ... 48

IV. The Monograph .... 67

Chapter I

*‘Mr. Dorrel, the Mentor must be better than ever this year; that goes without saying.”

The schoolmaster glanced at the clear, resolute gray eyes, at the clear, resolute red mouth, and twinkled a little, for Jeanie Campbell was always so earnest. She sat just as she had lightly flung herself on entering, sideways on the chair near his office desk, one arm running along the” back, and one hearty square-shod foot well in evidence. Alan Campbell had done his best to rectify Dame Nature’s mistake in making his only son a girl. Jeanie had only recently allowed her curly reddish hair to grow long enough to tie back, only recently allowed her seventeenyear-old skirts to reach her ankles. Looking into her keen, unconscious eyes, John Dorrel sometimes wondered when Jeanie Campbell would discover that she was n’t a boy.

“Yes,” nodded Jeanie, “we Seniors this year have got to make the Mentor the best school paper that ever happened. O Mr. Dorrel, don’t you love the feel of beginnings, the feel of each new school year, for instance?”

“Any special plans for the Mentor this year, Jeanie?”

“Plans before the election, 'Mr. Dorrel?” But the pink deepened beneath Jeanie’s freckles, and the corners of her mouth dimpled, for why should either of them pretend that the school’s choice of an editor was not already a foregone conclusion?!

“It all depends on the editor-in-chief, and I always regard the Mentor as one of the biggest possibilities of the Senior year.” The schoolmaster was earnest enough himself now, as he spoke.

all feel that way about it/^ answered Jeanie, grave, and a little tense, facing him with her clear look of responsibility realized and assumed, ‘‘and I — I mean we, all of us, or anybody who gets elected — will do our straight best, Mr. Dorrel.’’

“Mapleton Academy expects a good deal of an editor, besides editing,” mused John Dorrel, as casually as if this were not a state of affairs he had for years labored to bring about. “ I suppose that ’s why Sidney Lonesdale failed to get the Vote of Approval last May.”

“We had tOjbe honest about it,” said Jeanie. “Sidney wasn’t the kind of editor we want, and we had to say so in the Vote. It is n’t as'^if the Vote of Approval meant just the money.”

For that the Vote of Approval should carry with it all money made by the Mentor management during the year was another thing that John Dorrel had brought about; for what was the use of a school, thought he, if it did n’t prepare boys and girls a little for the stiffness and sternness of the real world that was waiting for them?

‘‘The editorship of the Mentor requires a public-spirited citizen,” John Dorrel continued his casual musing; “and it’s no fun, always, to be a public-spirited citizen.”

“I think it is,” cried Jeanie, “fun to be a public-spirited citizen!”

And the schoolmaster laughed, knowing well that exactly so must Alan Campbell’s daughter have replied 1

“I trust you to be that, Jeanie.”

“But, Mr. Dorrel,” reproved Jeanie, “I have n’t been elected.”

“Not yet, that’s true, but perhaps you have some ideas ready.”

“Oh, yes!” And Jeanie’s cheeks and eyes began to glow, for she was one who required more worlds than books to conquer. “One thing I’ve thought of; I think it would be splendid if the Mentor should take up the new Academy building and make a regular campaign of it. Perhaps we could get the whole town excited, and that would mean a lot of subscriptions outside of the school, and perhaps weM really get the new building that way. Would n’t that be splendid!”

Professor Dorrel, to Jeanie’s puzzlement, was utterly silent, so that she repeated, '‘Would n’t it be splendid! And we need a new school so much more than that town hall people keep talking about.”

"We need both,” said John Dorrel quietly.

"Oh, yes, of course, but we need the new school more. Look at this building!” and Jeanie flung out an emphatic hand toward the cracked ceiling and the crooked window. "It’s fairly tumbling down on our heads!”

"Oh, no, not quite so bad as that, Jeanie.”

"Well, anyway, the new school is one thing the Mentor could take up ! and then there’s another I’ve thought of. You know those ‘Back-to-the-Farm’ letters in the Chronicle signed 'Old Fogy’? Well, I think it would be fun for the Mentor to answer them with an ‘Out-into-the-World’ series, a sort of debate between the town paper and the school paper. That would be another way of making the Mentor popular out in the town as well as in the school. Then I Ve a lot of other ideas for making it interesting to the school itself, for after last year something must be done about the Mentor!"’

‘‘Suppose,” the schoolmaster paused, “merely suppose, Jeanie, that something was done about the Mentor, done earnestly and devotedly, and yet even so, suppose this year’s editor also failed to get the Vote of Approval next May ? ”

“The school would n’t be so mean, Mr. Dorrel!”

“You can never tell about people, you know.” John Dorrel was examining the point of a pencil lying upon his blotter.

“Mr. Dorrel, do you mean that, perhaps, — do you mean that you think I like approval?”

‘‘Don’t you, perhaps, Jeanie, a little?” His dark, frank eyes twinkled at her wide and deepening gray ones.

“Per — haps,” she admitted; “I never thought of it before. I always just go rushing ahead doing things. But ye — es, perhaps, Mr. Dorrel, I do like approval pretty well. At least, I like people to say, ‘ Thank you.’ ” “’T is safer not, Jeanie, for some of us. We can’t always tell how people are going to take us. Best not to count on thank-yous.” He shrugged his shoulders genially. “The editorship of the Mentor is an education in people.” Then, seeing in Jeanie’s wide eyes his words take root against the future, he changed the subject abruptly. “By the way, Jeanie, how ’s your boarder getting on?”

A quick laugh drove the gravity from Jeanie’s lips. “He ’s one, is n’t he, who needs an education in people? Mr. Dorrel, I honestly think he’s the queerest boy I ever knew! Truly, truly, something’s got to be done about that boy this year!”

‘"Well, did n’t I send him to board with the Campbells?”

Jeanie’s quick laugh rang. “He’s been with the Campbells two weeks, and I don’t see that either father or I have done him much good!” Then back came the earnestness, “It’s dreadful, really! Why, that boy has been in Mapleton Academy a whole year, and I don’t believe he knows six people in school by sight! He doesn’t know a thing that happens, never comes to a meeting of any kind, and should n’t you think he ’d be awfully lonesome that way ? ” A maternal depth softened Jeanie’s eyes. “But he doesn’t seem even to know he ’s lonesome. He does n’t see, does n’t hear, does n’t look. How can he go on being that way, Mr. Dorrel?”

“He must n’t!”

“And it’s a funny thing — while he always goes along with his head in a cloud and never seems to see any one an5rwhere, yet everybody somehow is always watching him. You can’t help it. Ever since his essay took Major

Sturtevant’s prize last spring, and was printed in the Chronicle, everybody has watched Spencer Briggs and expected things of him; everybody in school and people in town, too, even father/’

“Your father?” inquired John Dorrel, with quick interest.

“Yes, I think so; father has n’t said so, of course, but father and I are pretty well acquainted, and I think, and hope, father is looking Spencer over. You know for years he’s been watching the Academy Seniors, to see if some boy won’t prove to be just what he wants. I wish it might be Spencer, but I ’m afraid it won’t be, — not if Spencer does n’t wake up and let himself out a little.”

“There is n’t much ahead for Spencer if he does n’t, I ’m afraid,” frowned John Dorrel.

“I don’t know what’s ahead for him after school, Mr. Dorrel. He has n’t any money except what he can earn. I must say that I don’t think that grandfather of his is very generous or good to him!”

lo THE BOY EDITOR

^Tsn’t it better for Spencer to help himself?’’

‘‘No, I don’t think so, Mr. Dorrel!” Jeanie’s cheeks flamed with her emphasis. “I do not think so! I think it would help Spencer Briggs a whole lot if he’d sometimes let somebody help him with something!”

“Can’t you manage that somehow?’’

“No! And I’ve tried! Of course, I don’t mean help with money. I mean Spencer Briggs needs to be helped, and to know he’s being helped, too! He’s too stuck-up!” The tempery red ringlets shook on Jeanie’s forehead ; then in an instant her heat was gone. “I’m awfully sorry for him, truly, but what can anybody do?”

“Jeanie, you must! You must think of a way to educate Spencer Briggs in people.”

“Well, but, Mr. Dorrel, I’m trying and trying to think of a way. But what can you do for a boy when he does n’t even see you ? He does n’t know anything about people. He does n’t even know how to shake hands ! And

II it is n’t only this year I think about, but next year. A boy that can study like that and think like that and write like that, — he can’t go back to his grandfather’s farm on Lost Mountain!”

Then both of them jumped at a deepgrowled voice, ‘‘What’s the matter with a farm on Lost Mountain?”

Hiram Scott, acting as office monitor on that Friday afternoon, and knowing the precedence of parents and guardians over mere pupils, had quietly admitted a tall old man as a mischievous intimation to Jeanie that her time was up.

“Anybody here got anything against Lost Mountain?”

John Dorrel had sprung up with frankly extended hand. “Nobody here has anything against Lost Mountain. It has sent us a prize pupil.”

But the grim old face appeared unappeased. The bushy grizzled eyebrows drew down over the keen blue eyes. “It was the lady I heard speaking!’’ The stranger regarded Jeanie aggressively.

In an amused effort at amenity, John Dorrel presented Jeanie, — ‘‘This is Miss Jeanie Campbell.”

“And this,” elucidated the keen old mouth above its fringe of beard,“ is Stephen Pelham.”

The old man and the girl stood regarding each other with level, challenging eyes. They were both of them given to direct thoughts and words. Jeanie was wondering where she had seen a forehead just like that, broad and high, with a space of white above a space of tawny sunburn.

“I have n’t anything against Lost Mountain, Mr. Pelham,” said Jeanie firmly, “except that it’s no place for a boy as clever as Spencer Briggs.”

The blue eyes slowly studied Jeanie from her topmost red curl to the square toes of her sturdy shoes. “Humph!” growled Stephen Pelham and turned from her abruptly to Professor Dorrel./

Both men had obviously silently dismissed Jeanie, but with her hand upon the door suddenly she turned around. Jeanie Campbell was not readily diverted when she was in the full flood of any thought. Now an idea had come to her, sweeping through her, shaking her! She stood with her back against the door, white and wide-eyed, seeking the schoolmaster’s face. Her words reached his ear before she turned and went hurrying into the hall, — ‘"Mr. Dorrel, I’ve thought of a way!”

John Dorrel turned to his visitor to find the strong old face all puckered with humor. Stephen Pelham jerked his head in the direction of the retreating footsteps.

“Fine girl! Whose?”

“Alan Campbell’s.”

“Editor Campbell’s?”

“Yes.”

“She like him?”

“Very.”-

“Blood tells/" muttered Stephen Pelham; “blood tells/"

“Your grandson takes his meals at the Campbells"/"

The visitor started. “How d"you know I had a grandson? Ever seen me before?""

“Never. I knew you by the resemblance. The boy is very like you/"

“The boy — like me! Spencer — like me !"" There was the sound of a grim chuckle, then silence. “Yes, it"s true. He"s like me. But he don"t know it."" Again silence. “And he would n"t want to know it either!""

John Dorrel lent himself silently to the abrupt, jerked-out confidences. He answered questions but asked none.

“Boy pretty well fixed this year? Pretty comfortable where he boards?""

“He sleeps here in the office as he did last year when he was janitor. But he takes his meals at the Campbells". I fancy he"s comfortable. The Campbells are good providers! You might step up and look the place over. You’d find Spencer there at suppertime.”

Stephen Pelham shook his head with a twitching, cynical smile. “I don’t want the boy should lack this year. I want you to keep an eye to that, Professor. That’s what I came to see you about. I want him to be able to put all his time to study. I don’t want he should lack. But I ’m not here to go calling on him. ’T would n’t please him. Herbert Spencer Briggs don’t take any great stock in his Lost Mountain relatives! Not enough to take a free cent from ’em, if he knew it. Needn’t know it, if you’ll manage. Guess he has enough for one while, though! I saw to that! Wages!” There was the sound of a slow, deep chuckle. ‘'But I would n’t have him know. Could n’t say what he’d do if he knew. Like as not light out for good, like his father. Reckon you’ve had some experience trying to get inside some of these tight-mouthed younguns?”

“I suppose youVe tried to get inside?’’ John Dorrel smiled.

‘‘Don’t know where to begin to try. Did n’t want to get inside at first, to tell the truth. Kind of got to not expecting much of him summer a year ago, when Mary first brought him home with her. Put him out in the fields then, but it did n’t work — neither did he! Different last summer. Put his mind on it. Has a mind! Folks think so, don’t they? That girl just now seemed to think he was smart.”

“He is.”

“Suppose you saw that essay of his last spring, ‘The'Two Sieges of the Civil War’?” Stephen Pelham tried hard to keep the glow out of his sharp old eyes, the crinkling smile from his grizzled lips. “Strikes me. Professor, that was writing!’'

“It was!” the schoolmaster’s enthusiasm answered the grandfather’s.

“I’ve had an eye on him ever since that piece came out in the paper. I’m watching him this year. IVe my plans. No telling what he’ll say to ’em, though. And it’ll be for him to decide. It’s his own job, his life is.”

John Dorrel waited patiently for further explanation, but only the old low chuckle came. It was a matter of stimulation to a listener to attach Stephen Pelham’s pronouns to their proper places, for he had a preference for omitting them. ‘‘Thinks I don’t notice. Do notice. Found my stacks of old newspapers up-garret. Walked off with a lot of ’em. Studies ’em for the history, like enough. Suppose he thinks I don’t know they’re good for anything. Me! Wonder who he thinks kept ’em all in order all these years! It’s been my way of getting off the mountain, — papers ! Used to think I had to take a heap of ’em. Find one ’s enough since the Scotchman came. Don’t take anything but the Chronicle now. Don’t need so many papers, besides, since I don’t care so much ’bout getting away from the mountain as I used to. Not so bad, the mountain, when you once give in and make friends with it. Takes grit, though, more than some boys have, to stay by a farm on Lost Mountain. And sometimes, looking back, I wonder — Here Stephen Pelham fell into a silence too long for even John Dorrel’s patience.

‘‘You Ve been following the ‘ Back-to-the- Farm’ letters in the Chronicle.?’’ he asked at length. “They have interested me.”

“Have they? I’ve read ’em, yes. But mostly talk, don’t you think?”

“No, I’ve thought they were mostly sense.”

“Don’t know ’bout that. Don’t know ’bout that.” Again a thoughtful pause until the old man was recalled by the other.

“Your collection of newspapers must be most valuable, Mr. Pelham.”

There were no more silences! Stephen Pelham was off on his hobby. There was no pause in the flow of pithy, staccato sentences, scanty of pronouns. But the fact that he was habitually chary of speech was plain from his confusion at the sound of suddenly outpouring feet upon the battered stairs, announcing the four o’clock dismissal of school and the fact that he, silent old Stephen Pelham, must have talked away a good hour and a half of the schoolmaster’s Friday afternoon office hours. His rush for the office door was comically precipitate, and his retreat back into the room even more so. The chuckle was humorous but a shade nervous. ‘'He almost caught me. Is he off for good now, d’ye think?”

“Off for an hour. I’ve at last convinced him of the need of exercise after school.”

During the hour of parental interviews that followed, John Dorrel’s thoughts kept up a steady undercurrent of effort to solve a problem. At five o’clock the problem himself knocked and entered. His bright spectacled eyes greeted the schoolmaster with the glow which they always had for him, no matter how unseeing they might be in other directions. Looking at him. Professor Dorrel wondered what other changes the summer had made in Herbert Spencer Briggs in addition to the contrast of white and sunburn on his forehead, which made him look more than ever like his grandfather.

‘"Are you very busy, Mr. Dorrel.?”

The Professor leaned back comfortably in his sagging chair, clasping his slim brown hands behind his head.

“All through with work for the week, Spencer, and ready for talk. Let ’s have some ! And there are no Friday night janitor jobs to interfere with your time, either, this year. I warrant you don’t miss them, eh, Spencer?”

“No, I am very glad to be relieved of them. My grandfather paid me this summer, for working on the farm, fifty dollars a month.”

“Indeed? That, I believe, is reasonably good wages for a farm laborer in this part of the country!”

“Just the usual wages, he explained from the beginning. I would not have been willing to be under any obligations. I am very glad to have the money, for I should not wish any outside responsibilities to interfere with my work this year. Such a very important year! Why, I feel as if almost anything might be made of this year, as it opens up before me ; only last night I received a new suggestion; and then it’s my last year with you, Mr. Dorrel.”

The flattery of those glowing young spectacles brought a twinkle to John Dorrel’s deep-brown eyes, as he hinted, “And your last year with a good many other people, too. And what’s the new suggestion, Spencer, and where does it come from?”

“I want to talk it over with you, Mr. Dorrel. It has to do with my preparation for my career, my profession.”

“That point is settled, then?”

“Yes, last night. At first I was going to be a philosopher because my father is one, and then last year, when I wrote ‘The Two Sieges,’ I wanted to be an historian. But now I’ve decided to be an editor.”;

A gleam came into John Dorrel’s eyes; so one of his little plans was working, and Alan Campbell was already making himself felt !

“And your grandfather,” commented John Dorrel absently, “is a farmer.”

“Last summer, Mr. Dorrel,” said Spencer apologetically, “I came to think that there’s something in farming. It’s not, of course, what any ambitious young man would choose.”

“And you,” reflected John Dorrel, “are an ambitious young man.”

“I am, Mr. Dorrel! This year and every year of my life I mean to make just as much of myself as I possibly can.”

“What do you propose to be up to especially, this year?”

“In addition to my school studies, — they are going all right, Mr. Dorrel?” Spencer interrupted himself anxiously; for ever since in the year of his janitorship the Professor had given him a much-needed lesson in window-washing, the boy had shared the consciousness of every pupil of Mapleton Academy that it was perfectly possible for a good deal to be the matter with you in Professor Dorrel’s opinion while you were quite unaware.

‘‘You are all right at books, Spencer.’’

Reassured, Spencer continued, glowing, “I have a good deal of time left from my school studies, and at Mr. Campbell’s suggestion I am going to devote it to a long essay, a monograph is the word, I believe, on the subject of editorial responsibility. I have had access to a number of old newspapers at my grandfather’s, and Mr. Campbell suggests that such a — a theoretic study and research would be excellent preparation for my life work.”

“Mr. Campbell said that?” The tone was startled. The suggestion did not sound like Alan Campbell. What mischief was that wise Scotchman up to now, thought John Dorrel.

“Yes, Mr. Campbell advises it. And he even thinks that perhaps some day I can publish the — the monograph !”

Worse and worse; this really was too bad on the part of his editor friend; but John Dorrel had to smile, for sometimes his little plans worked altogether too well!

“ Wh}^ be in such a hurry about publishing, Spencer ? You ’re — let me see — eighteen ? ”

“Mr. Dorrel, can any one be in too much of a hurry about a life work? I think one ought to set a goal before one, and then devote one’s self to reaching it!”

“Ever think of glancing round at the landscape while you’re running, Spencer? Or nodding ‘how-do-you-do’ to the friends along the track?”

“Friends?” queried Spencer blankly; “I do not see, Mr. Dorrel, how you can have time for friends if you are preparing yourself earnestly for a life work; a work, it seems to me, as I begin to have ideas for my monograph, of public service. I really was not planning to have any friends, not yet, Mr.

Dorrel. This seems to me such a very important year for self-preparation/’

"‘It is an important year,” John Dorrel slowly agreed. “Lots of people in the High Room seem to be feeling that way about it. There are a good many important matters buzzing about in the air, too. What's your opinion now, Spencer, of this affair of New School Building versus Town Hall?”

“About what, Mr. Dorrel?”

“There's a good deal of discussion rife in the town as to whether Mapleton shall build a new school or a town hall.”

“What's your opinion, Mr. Dorrel?” asked Spencer quickly.

“What's yours, Spencer?”

“I never heard of the question before. I should want to think it over pretty hard.”

“ Suppose you do think it over, when you have time from your monograph.”

“Mr. Dorrel,” said Spencer suddenly, “the reason I want to publish a monograph is that perhaps my grandfather would read it.

Perhaps he’d think I amounted to something.”

“Your ‘ Two Sieges’ was printed.”

“My grandfather did n’t read it. He has never mentioned it.”

There was something in the tenseness of the boy’s lips that caused the schoolmaster to change the subject quickly.

“Another thing that’s agitating the High Room in this important year is the coming election.”

“Election?”

“The election of an Editor-in-Chief for the Mentor.”

“The Mentor?”

“The school paper.”

“Oh,” said Spencer, politely indifferent.

“I am glad to say that I think the election is pretty sure for Jeanie Campbell.” The Professor spoke to himself as much as to Spencer, with the teacher’s relief at having one concern of this critical last year in the High Room in safe hands, “Jeanie knows a?

almost as much about editing a paper as her father do^s. Have you ever noticed Jeanie, Spencer?’’

'‘1 know there’s a girl there, at the Campbells’; but no, I’ve never noticed her particularly.”

Chapter II

The Campbell sitting-room of an evening was a ruddy, comfortable spot. It had in the centre a roomy table with no fussy, feminine cover to hump itself up or to slide away beneath the shoving-about of papers or books or studious elbows. It had a merry pine-knot fire on these crisp fall evenings. It had wide windows without any curtains to make a man or boy impatient. It had bookcases to the ceiling and chairs that were meant to sit in. It had always a pleasant orderliness, as of two lads who had discovered that order was a more comfortable thing to live with than mess. The Campbell sitting-room had not one touch of femininity except Jeanie Campbell herself, but in the matter of downright “homeyness” Jeanie was enough!

In the middle of the table a green-shaded lamp cast light on one’s reading, but left the rest of the room to be illumined by the leaping fire. It was an easy matter for Alan Campbell to shove his chair back out of the circle of the lamp into the fitful firelit shadow, whence he could regard two young people quite as interesting to peruse at times as was Thomas Carlyle ! One of these young people would from time to time forget Alan Campbell’s presence, but Jeanie knew her father far too well ever to forget that he was there, bending the intentness of two caustic blue eyes on Spencer Briggs’s spectacled face.

Now when a boarder is paying exactly two dollars a week for three hearty Pennsylvania meals a day, he is not always accorded in addition the privileges of the family sitting-room; but Jeanie Campbell knew that Spencer Briggs was a human boy, although he did n’t, and she had not needed more than the hint of an open door to prove to the unconscious Spencer that the Campbell sitting-room was better equipped for evening study than the chilly, ill-lighted school office. Spencer found a broad stretch of table before him, an excellent chair beneath him, and spent every evening at the Campbells’ without a thought that any young feminine providence had thus ordained. Oh, there was enough happening on any evening in his own sitting-room to set Alan Campbell’s lips twitching beneath his ragged, sandy mustache! To-night, however, the observant eyes were a bit more alert than usual, for the father surmised from the heightened brightness of her eyes and cheeks that his ‘‘son” had something special up her sleeve. There was a curious persistency, too, in the way Jeanie sought to break in upon Spencer’s monologue, whereas she was usually his meekest listener, never betraying the amused observation tucked away under her eyelids.

Alan Campbell wondered what John Dorrel had been up to in sending this boy to board with them. Had the schoolmaster’s little plan, whatever it was, been for the boy’s sake or the girl’s sake ? A suppressed laugh quivered in Alan Campbell’s throat, for he was seriously considering trying a little plan of his own. From the looks of her, Jeanie, too, had her project. But whatever little plans anybody might have, her father was sure of one thing, the boy had never so much as seen the girl! And that was pretty dull of him, to be sure. How could he help seeing the pure pink and white of her face, the clear gray glow of her eyes, the gleam of live gold beneath the lamp ? Yet perhaps a boy did n’t notice a girl who did n’t dress up. Now that he thought about it, Alan Campbell believed most girls did something more to their hair than Jeanie did, something more than catch the tangle back with a tight little bow at the neck. Jeanie never varied her uniform of immaculate, ill-fitting shirtwaist, and skirt obstinately short enough to allow freedom to the stride that matched her father’s. Fathers of motherless girls have their moments of puzzlement; perhaps it was time Jeanie began to dress up a little. Then the keen blue eyes grew very soft at the thought that if the boy did not see the girl, Jeanie was not one to care whether any one saw her or not; she never thought about herself long enough for that!

Spencer’s voice rolled out pleasantly through the firelit room. He was untying a fresh packet of yellowed newspapers.

‘Ht is a glorious thing to be an editor in war-times 1 A position of such responsibility, such power! The power to turn a whole nation toward the right in a national crisis! Not that an editorial position is not always full of responsibility, in peace as well as war ! ”

‘‘Yes,” said Jeanie, “even the editorship of the Mentor is full of responsibility.”

Spencer was opening out the papers each at the editorial page. He was intent upon the printed columns, and the pencil in his right hand felt about vaguely for a pad upon which to make jottings. Jeanie slipped one in place beneath the fingers, and the pencil drove away furiously in the strong, rapid strokes of a strong, rapid brain.

‘‘Don’t you,” persisted Jeanie, “think the editorship of the Mentor is a position of glorious responsibility.?”