“I got it from the war,” said John.  “The papers are still half full of war news, and that’s what’s keeping our business down—­because we ain’t adopting ourselves to the new war conditions.  So I figured it like this.  Say there are a million people over here in America who’ve got either friends or relations in the armies over there.  Say that all of ’em want to get news—­not just this stuff about battles, but real live news of what’s happened to Bill.  Has Bill still got his legs and arms?  Can he hold down a job when he gets home?  News which counts for something!  See?  A big new market!  Business for us!  So I tried to see what I could do!” John excitedly shifted his crutches.  Roger was watching intently.

“Go on, Johnny.”

“Sure, I’ll go on!  One night I went to a library where they have English papers.  I went over their files for about a month.  I took one Canadian regiment—­see?—­and traced it through, and I got quite a story.  Then I used some of the money I’ve saved and bought a whole bunch of papers.  I piled ’em up in the room where I sleep and went through ’em nights.  I hired two kids to help me.  Well, Mr. Gale, the thing worked fine!  In less than a week I had any amount of little bunches of clippings.  See how I mean?  Each bunch was the story of one regiment for a month.  So I knew we could deliver the goods!

“Well, this was about ten days ago.  And then I went after the market.  I went to a man I met last year in an advertising office, and for fifty dollars we put an ‘ad’ in the Sunday Times.  After that there was nothing to do but wait.  The next day—­nothing doing!  I was here at seven-thirty and I went through every mail.  Not a single answer to my ’ad’—­and I thought I was busted!  But Tuesday morning there were three, with five dollar checks inside of ’em!  In the afternoon there were two more and the next day eleven!  By the end of last week we’d had forty-six!  Friday I put in another ‘ad’ and there’ve been over seventy more since then!  That makes a hundred and twenty in all—­six hundred dollars!  And I’m swamped!  I ain’t done nothing yet—­I’ve just kept ’em all for you to see!”

He went quickly to the table, gathered a pile of letters there and brought them over to Roger’s desk.  Roger glanced over a few of them, dazed.  He looked around into John’s shrewd face, where mingled devotion and triumph and business zeal were shining.

“Johnny,” he said huskily, “you’ve adopted my business and no mistake.”  John swallowed again and scowled with joy.

“Let’s figure it out!” he proposed.

“We will!”

They were at it all day, laying their plans, “adopting” the work of the office to the new conditions.  They found they would need a larger force, including a French and a German translator.  They placed other “ads” in the papers.  They forgot to have lunch and worked steadily on, till the outer rooms were empty and still.  At last they were through.  Roger wearily put on his cuffs, and went and got his coat and hat.