“Certainly,” said West, surprised by the other’s tone.  “But clever as it was, it was not based, in my opinion, on a clear understanding of the facts as they actually exist.  You and I stay so close inside of four walls here that we are apt to get out of touch with practical conditions.  Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to get new facts, from a confidential and highly authoritative source.  In the light of these—­I wish I could explain them more fully to you, but I was pledged to secrecy—­I am obliged to tell you that what you had written seemed to me altogether out of focus, unfair, and extreme.”

“Did you get these facts, as you call them, from Plonny Neal?”

“As to that, I am at liberty to say nothing.”

Queed, looking at him, saw that he had.  He began to feel sorry for West.

“I would give four hundred and fifty dollars,” he said slowly—­“all the money that I happen to have—­if you had told me last night that you meant to do this.”

“I am awfully sorry,” said West, with a touch of dignity, “that you take it so hard.  But I assure you—­”

“I know Plonny Neal even better than you do,” continued Queed, “for I have known him as his social equal.  He is laughing at you to-day.”

West, of course, knew better than that.  The remark confirmed his belief that Queed had brooded over the reformatory till he saw everything about it distorted and magnified.

“Well, old fellow,” he said, without a trace of ill-humor in his voice or his manner, “then it is I he is laughing at—­not you.  That brings us right back to my point.  If you feel, as I understand it, that the Post is in the position of having deserted its own cause, I alone am the deserter.  Don’t you see that?  Not only am I the editor of the paper, and so responsible for all that it says; but I wrote the article, on my own best information and judgment.  Whatever consequences there are,” said West, his thoughts on the consequences most likely to accrue to the saviour of the party, “I assume them all.”

“A few people,” said Queed, slowly, “know that I have been conducting this fight for the Post.  They may not understand that I was suddenly superseded this morning.  But of course it isn’t that.  It is simply a matter—­”

“Believe me, it can all be made right.  I shall take the greatest pleasure in explaining to your friends that I alone am responsible.  I shall call to-day—­right now—­at—­”

“I’m sorry,” said Queed, abruptly, “but it is entirely impossible for me to remain.”

West looked, and felt, genuinely distressed.  “I wish,” he said, “the old reformatory had never been born”; and he went on in a resigned voice:  “Of course I can’t keep you with a padlock and chain, but—­for the life of me, I can’t catch your point of view.  To my mind it appears the honorable and courageous thing to correct a mistake, even at the last moment, rather than stand by it for appearance’s sake.”