She might have been easier to bear had her manner of arrival been less assured.  She romped up the stairs, came skipping across the old floor, swinging her hat by a ribbon, flung open the gate in the sacred railing, and, flouncing into the principal chair, immodestly placed her feet on the table in front of that chair.  Additionally, such was her lively humour, she affected to light and smoke the stub of a lead pencil.  “Well, men,” she said heartily, “I don’t want to see any loafin’ around here, men.  I expect I’ll have a pretty good newspaper this week; yes, sir, a pretty good newspaper, and I guess you men got to jump around a good deal to do everything I think of, or else maybe I guess I’ll have to turn you off.  I don’t want to haf to do that, men.”

The blackmailed partners made no reply, on account of an inability that was perfect for the moment.  They stared at her helplessly, though not kindly; for in their expressions the conflict between desire and policy was almost staringly vivid.  And such was their preoccupation, each with the bitterness of his own case, that neither wondered at the other’s strange complaisance.

Florence made it clear to them that henceforth she was the editor of The North End Daily Oriole. (She said she had decided not to change the name.) She informed them that they were to be her printers; she did not care to get all inky and nasty herself, she said.  She would, however, do all the writing for her newspaper, and had with her a new poem.  Also, she would furnish all the news and it would be printed just as she wrote it, and printed nicely, too, or else——­She left the sentence unfinished.

Thus did this cool hand take possession of an established industry, and in much the same fashion did she continue to manage it.  There were unsuppressible protests; there was covert anguish; there was even a strike—­but it was a short one.  When the printers remained away from their late Newspaper Building, on Wednesday afternoon, Florence had an interview with Herbert after dinner at his own door.  He explained coldly that Henry and he had grown tired of the printing-press and had decided to put in all their spare time building a theatre in Henry’s attic; but Florence gave him to understand that the theatre could not be; she preferred the Oriole.

Henry and Herbert had both stopped “speaking” to Patty Fairchild, for each believed her treacherous to himself; but Florence now informed Herbert that far from depending on mere hearsay, she had in her own possession the confession of his knowledge that he had ocular beauty; that she had discovered the paper where Patty had lost it; and that it was now in a secure place, and in an envelope, upon the outside of which was already written, “For Wallie Torbin.  Kindness of Florence A.”

Herbert surrendered.

So did Henry Rooter, a little later that evening, after a telephoned conversation with the slave-driver.