The Butterfly Man shot him a freighted glance.  “Folks in this county will sort of miss the Clarion,” he reflected.  “After all, it’s the one county paper.  Seems to me,” he mused, “that if I were going in head, neck and crop for the sweet little job of reformer-general, I’d first off get me a grappling-hook on my town’s one newspaper.  Particularly when grappling-hooks were going cheap.”

“Hasn’t Inglesby got a mortgage on it?”

“If he had would he let it die in its bed so nice and ladylike?  Not much!  It’d kick out the footboard and come alive.  Inglesby must be getting rusty in the joints not to reach out for the Clarion himself, right now.  Maybe he figures it’s not worth the price.  Maybe he knows this town so well he’s dead sure nobody that buys a newspaper here would have the nerve to print anything or think anything he didn’t approve of.  Yes, I guess that’s it.”

“Which is your gentle way,” cut in Laurence, “of telling me I’d better hustle out and gather in the Clarion before Inglesby beats me to it, isn’t it?”

“Me?” The Butterfly Man looked pained.  “I’m not telling you to buy anything. I’m only thinking of the obituaries.  Ask the parson.  I’m—­I’m addicted to ’em, like some people are to booze.  But if you’d promise to keep open the old corner for them, why, I might come out and beg you to buy the Clarion, now it’s going so cheap.  Yep—­all on account of the obituaries!” And he murmured: 

    “Our dear little Johnny was left alive
       To reach the interesting age of five
     When—­”

“That’s just about as much as I can stand of that, my son!” said I, hastily.

“The parson’s got an awful tender heart,” the Butterfly Man explained and Laurence was graceless enough to grin.

“Well, as I was about to say:  I happened to think Inglesby would be brute enough to choke out my pet column, or make folks pay for it, and things like that haven’t got any business to have price tags on ’em.  So I got to thinking of you.  You’re young and tender; also a college man; and you’re itching to wash and iron Appleboro—­” he took off his glasses and wiped them delicately and deliberately.

“Did you also get to thinking,” said Laurence, crisply, “that I’m just about making my salt at present, and still you’re suggesting that I tie a dead old newspaper about my neck and jump overboard?  One might fancy you hankered to add my obituary to your collection!” he finished with a touch of tartness.

The Butterfly Man smiled ever so gently.

“The Clarion is the county paper,” he explained patiently.  “It was here first.  It’s been here a long time, and people are used to it.  It knows by heart how they think and feel and how they want to be told they think and feel.  And you ought to know Carolina people when it comes right down to prying them loose from something they’re used to!” He paused, to let that sink in.