business booming again?" he asked, shrewdly.

"More than that!" said Marty Briggs.

"Then," said Joe, "I want _you_ to take it."

"_Me_?" Marty was stunned.

"You can do it easily. I'll take a mortgage and you pay it off two
thousand a year and five per cent. interest. That will still leave you a
tidy profit."

"_Me_?" Then Marty laughed loud. "Listen, my ears! Did you hear that?"

"Think it over!" snapped Joe. "Now come along."




VII


LAST OF JOE BLAINE AND HIS MEN

So the printery was rehabilitated, and one gray morning Joe, with a
queer tremor at his heart, went down the street and met many of his men
in the doorway. They greeted him with strange, ashamed emotion.

"Morning, Mr. Joe.... It's been a long spell.... Good to see the old
place again.... Bad weather we're having.... How've you been?"