to be shaking hands with Colville. During the months that he remained to
close up his affairs after the sale of his paper, the _Post-Democrat-
Republican_ (the newspaper had agglutinated the titles of two of its
predecessors, after the fashion of American journals) was fulsome in
its complimentary allusions to him. It politely invented the fiction
that he was going to Europe for his health, impaired by his journalistic
labours, and adventurously promised its readers that they might hope
to hear from him from time to time in its columns. In some of its
allusions to him Colville detected the point of a fine irony, of which
he had himself introduced the practice in the _Democrat-Republican_;
and he experienced, with a sense of personal impoverishment,
the curious fact that a journalist of strong characteristics
leaves the tradition of himself in such degree with the journal
he has created that he seems to bring very little away. He was
obliged to confess in his own heart that the paper was as good as ever.
The assistants, who had trained themselves to write like him, seemed to
be writing quite as well, and his honesty would not permit him to
receive the consolation offered him by the friends who told him that
there was a great falling off in the _Post-Democrat-Republican_. Except
that it was rather more Stalwart in its Republicanism, and had turned
quite round on the question of the tariff, it was very much what it had
always been. It kept the old decency of tone which he had given it, and
it maintained the literary character which he was proud of. The new
management must have divined that its popularity, with the women at
least, was largely due to its careful selections of verse and fiction,
its literary news, and its full and piquant criticisms, with their long
extracts from new books. It was some time since he had personally looked
after this department, and the young fellow in charge of it under him
had remained with the paper. Its continued excellence, which he could
not have denied if he had wished, seemed to leave him drained and