This sudden jerk in the conversation snapped it off, and for a moment there
was quiet. I knew not how to get conversation started again. Our usual way
is to talk about the weather; but that subject had been already exhausted.

Suddenly I saw the color for the first time in years come into the face of
Mr. Givemfits. The fact was that, in biting a hard crust of bread, he had
struck a sore tooth which had been troubling him, and he broke out with the
exclamation, "Dr. Butterfield, the physical and moral world is
degenerating. Things get worse and worse. Look, for instance, at the tone
of many of the newspapers; gossip, abuse, lies, blackmail, make up the
chief part of them, and useful intelligence is the exception. The public
have more interest in murders and steamboat explosions than in the items of
mental and spiritual progress. Church and State are covered up with
newspaper mud."

"Stop!" said Dr. Butterfield. "Don't you ever buy newspapers?"




CHAPTER III.

A GROWLER SOOTHED.


Givemfits said to Dr. Butterfield, "You asked me last evening if I ever
bought newspapers. I reply, Yes, and write for them too.

"But I see their degeneracy. Once you could believe nearly all they said;
now he is a fool who believes a tenth part of it. There is the New York