“I think I do, sir,” was the reply; “but that’s a pretty big order, Mr. Merrick.  The outfit for a modern daily will cost a small fortune.”

“Never mind; send it along.”

“Very well.  But you’d better give me some details.  How big a newspaper do you want to print?”

“Hold the wire and I’ll find out,” said Uncle John.  Then he opened the door of the booth and said:  “Patsy, how big a thing do you want to print?”

“How big?  Oh, let me see.  Four pages will do, won’t it, Louise?”

“Plenty, I should say, for this place,” answered Louise.

“And how many columns to a page?” asked Uncle John.

“Oh, six or seven.  That’s regular, I guess.”

“Make it six,” proposed Beth.  “That will keep us busy enough.”

“All right,” said Uncle John, and closed the door again.

This conversation was of the most startling nature to the assembled villagers, who were all trying to look unconcerned and as if “they’d jest dropped in,” but were unable to dissemble their curiosity successfully.  Of course much of this interchange of words between the man in the booth and the girls outside was Greek to them all, but “to print” and “columns” and “pages” could apply only to one idea, which, while not fully grasped, was tremendously startling in its suggestion.  The Merrick party was noted for doing astonishing things in the past and evidently, in the words of Peggy McNutt, they were “up to some blame foolishness that’ll either kill this neighborhood or make it talked about.”

“It’s too dead a’ready to kill,” responded Nick Thorne gloomily.  “Even the paper mill, four mile away, ain’t managed to make Millville wiggle its big toe.  Don’t you worry over what the nabob’ll do, Peggy; he couldn’t hurt nuthin’ if he tried.”

The door opened again and Mr. Merrick protruded a puzzled countenance.

“He wants to know about a stereotype plant, Patsy.  What’ll I tell him?”

Patsy stared.  Louise and Beth shook their heads.

“If it belongs to the—­the thing we want, Uncle, have ’em send it along,” said Patsy in desperation.

“All right.”

A few minutes later the little man again appealed to them.

“How’ll we run the thing, girls; steam or electricity?”

Patsy’s face was a blank.  Beth giggled and Louise frowned.

“Of course it’ll have to be run,” suggested Mr. Merrick; “but how?  That’s the question.”

“I—­I hadn’t given that matter thought,” admitted Patsy.  “What do you think, Uncle?”

He considered, holding open the door while he thoughtfully regarded the silent but interested group of villagers that eagerly hung upon every word that passed.

“Cotting,” called Mr. Merrick, “how do they run the paper mill at Royal?”

“’Lectricity!  ’Lectricity, sir!” answered half a dozen at once.

“They develops the power from the Royal Waterfall of the Little Bill,” explained Cotting, with slow and pompous deliberation.  “Mr. Skeelty he tol’ me they had enough ’lectric’ty to light up the whole dum country fer ten mile in all directions, ‘sides a-runnin’ of the mill.”