my acquaintance did this most unsuccessfully.  He wrote his Christmas-day story with the aid of a directory and the file of a last year’s paper.  From the year-old file he obtained the names of all the charitable institutions which made a practice of giving their charges presents and Christmas trees, and from the directory he drew the names of their presidents and boards of directors; but as he was unfortunately lacking in religious knowledge and a sense of humor, he included all the Jewish institutions on the list, and they wrote to the paper and rather objected to being represented as decorating Christmas trees, or in any way celebrating that particular day.  But of all stale, flat, and unprofitable stories, this releasing of prisoners from Moyamensing was the worst.  It seemed to Bronson that they were always releasing prisoners; he wondered how they possibly left themselves enough to make a county prison worth while.  And the city editor for some reason always chose him to go down and see them come out.  As they were released at midnight, and never did anything of moment when they were released but to immediately cross over to the nearest saloon with all their disreputable friends who had gathered to meet them, it was trying to one whose regard for the truth was at first unshaken, and whose imagination at the last became exhausted.  So, when Bronson heard he had to release another prisoner in pathetic descriptive prose, he lost heart and patience, and rebelled.

“Andy,” he said, sadly and impressively, “if I have written that story once, I have written it twenty times.  I have described Moyamensing with the moonlight falling on its walls; I have described it with the walls shining in the rain; I have described it covered with the pure white snow that falls on the just as well as on the criminal; and I have made the bloodhounds in the jail-yard howl dismally—­and there are no bloodhounds, as you very well know; and I have made released convicts declare their intention to lead a better and a purer life, when they only said, ’If youse put anything in the paper about me, I’ll lay for you;’ and I have made them fall on the necks of their weeping wives, when they only asked, ’Did you bring me some tobacco?  I’m sick for a pipe;’ and I will not write any more about it; and if I do, I will do it here in the office, and that is all there is to it.”

“Oh yes, I think you will,” said the city editor, easily.

“Let some one else do it,” Bronson pleaded—­“some one who hasn’t done the thing to death, who will get a new point of view—­” Conway, who had stopped writing, and had been grinning at Bronson over the city editor’s back, grew suddenly grave and absorbed, and began to write again with feverish industry.  “Conway, now, he’s great at that sort of thing.  He’s—­”

The city editor laid a clipping from the morning paper on the desk, and took a roll of bills from his pocket.