“You’re safe.  There isn’t any.  And scarcely a single statement.  But if you wrote it, I suppose it goes.”

“And the interview, too,” rasped McQuiggan.

“It’s usual,” said Ellis to Hal.  “The tail with the hide:  the soul with the body, when you’re selling.”

“But we’re not selling interviews,” said Hal uneasily.

“You’re getting nearly a thousand dollars’ worth of copy, and giving a bonus that don’t cost you anything,” said his father.  “The papers have done it for me ever since I’ve been in business.”

“I guess that’s right, too,” agreed Ellis.

“Why don’t you take McQuiggan down to meet your Mr. Shearson, Hal?” suggested the Doctor.  “I’ll stay here and round out a couple of other ideas for his campaign.”

Hal had risen from his desk when there was a light knock at the door and Milly Neal’s bright head appeared.

“Hullo!” said Dr. Surtaine.  “What’s up?  Anything wrong at the shop, Milly?”

The girl walked into the room and stood trimly at ease before the four men.

“No, Chief,” said she.  “I understood Mr. Surtaine wanted to see me.”

“I?” said Hal blankly, pushing a chair toward her.

“Yes.  Didn’t you?  They told me you left word for me in the city room, to see you when I came in again.  Sometimes I send my copy, so I only just got the message.”

“Miss Neal is ‘Kitty the Cutie,’” explained McGuire Ellis.

“Looks it, too,” observed L.P.  McQuiggan jauntily, addressing the upper far corner of the room.

Miss Neal looked at him, met a knowing and conscious smile, looked right through the smile, and looked away again, all with the air of one who gazes out into nothingness.

“Guess I’ll go look up this Shearson person,” said Mr. McQuiggan, a trifle less jauntily.  “See you all later.”

“I’d no notion you were the writer of the Cutie paragraphs, Milly,” said Dr. Surtaine.  “They’re lively stuff.”

“Nobody has.  I’m keeping it dark.  It’s only a try-out.  You did send for me, didn’t you?” she added, turning to Hal.

“Yes.  What I had in mind to say to you—­that is, to the author—­the writer of the paragraphs,” stumbled Hal, “is that they’re a little too—­too—­”

“Too flip?” queried his father.  “That’s what makes ’em go.”

“If they could be done in a manner not quite so undignified,” suggested the editor-in-chief.

Color rose in the girl’s smooth cheek.  “You think they’re vulgar,” she charged.

“That’s rather too harsh a word,” he protested.

“You do!  I can see it.”  She flushed an angry red.  “I’d rather stop altogether than have you think that.”

“Don’t be young,” put in McGuire Ellis, with vigor.  “Kitty has caught on.  It’s a good feature.  The paper can’t afford to drop it.”

“That’s right,” supplemented Dr. Surtaine.  “People are beginning to talk about those items.  They read ’em.  I read ’em myself.  They’ve got the go, the pep.  They’re different.  But, Milly, I didn’t even know you could write.”