THE CRUISE OF THE JASPER B.

BY DON MARQUIS



TO ALL THE COPYREADERS ON ALL THE NEWSPAPERS OF AMERICA



CHAPTER I

A BRIGHT BLADE LEAPS FROM A RUSTY SCABBARD

On an evening in April, 191-, Clement J. Cleggett walked sedately
into the news room of the New York Enterprise with a drab-colored
walking-stick in his hand. He stood the cane in a corner,
changed his sober street coat for a more sober office jacket,
adjusted a green eyeshade below his primly brushed grayish hair,
unostentatiously sat down at the copy desk, and unobtrusively
opened a drawer.

From the drawer he took a can of tobacco, a pipe, a pair of
scissors, a paste-pot and brush, a pile of copy paper, a penknife
and three half-lengths of lead pencil.

The can of tobacco was not remarkable. The pipe was not
picturesque. The scissors were the most ordinary of scissors.
The copy paper was quite undistinguished in appearance. The lead
pencils had the most untemperamental looking points.