Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 March 1881 — Bagshot's Assistant, Minneapolis Weekly. [ARTICLE]

Bagshot's Assistant, Minneapolis Weekly.

Chodurff. The cblonel wb« sway to New York rm buainew, te*vIng we Union in the hand* of an a»BiHtant Who had been in hla employ some little time. Now. the colonel knew that the said assistant had the cheek of a mum statue and the audacity of a New England fly.—both indispensable attributes to the newspaper-man still, after being in the city abodt a things?” * . Back came tbe answer from the Unton’t pro tem. editor: “Bully! Circulation of the old thing’s gone up a thousand. Been getting up a red - hot paper, and there’s a gang outside that are weeping because they can’t hoist the shingles off the roof apd knock the whole concern to thunder. 'Stay away as long as you like.” Bagahot didn’t waste a moment after receiving this encouraging dispatch. He started home on the first tpdn, and reached Chodupk before night. The first man tliat struck him was the ticket agent. • f J “Look here Colonel! ” he cried, excitedly, “I’ve a darned good notion to punch your head, you brazen-faced old

“Why T ” asked Bagshot. “Bead that! ” andthe ticket agent shoved a crumpled Union Into his hand. O There was a paragraph as follows: r “ Railroad Nbw>.—The bandylegged idiot who robs the /aflroid company at this village has purchased *1 new pocket-knife. More knockingdown from the cash drawer.” Bagshot bit his lips. , “Bin.” said he, “that’s calumny, and I’ll see it righted in aur next. It’s my cussed.assistant’s work.” “I don’t care whos? work It is,” growled the agent, “but, if it ain’t contradicted, somebody’s got to die—that’s all!” -

Bagshot didn’t reply, but sailed down the street to the Union office. He had not gone half a block before he collided with Deacon Marsh. The deacon seized him by the shoulder and exclaimed: “What do you mean, Bagshot, by inserting that scandalously untrue item about me ?!’ “Didn’t Insert any item,” repliec the colonel. . - ! ' * “Don’t sneak opt of it that way. You know you did. Why, I just cut it, out of the Union. Listen: .. “ Religious Intelligence.—That whited sepulchre, Deacon Marsh, was noticed last Saturday night trying to open the coal-hole in front ol his residence with his night-key. Deacon was fill! as a goat,and couldn’t tell moonshine from green cheese?’ “Now, that’s nice—ain’t it? saying that I was drunk Saturday night, when I went to bed with a raging toothache.” “It’s that reckless fool whom I left in charge.” groaned the Colonel. “I’ll make it all right, M ara h; ” and Bagshot scurried on again, only to be confronted by Maj. Blim. “ Colonel,” uttered Blim, in his deepest voice, “this is villainous! It’s my intention, sir, to call you out and shoot you through the heart. What the deuce do you mean by publishing this' note in tne Union." Military Jottinos.—Ma}. Blim, the tattered old beggar who hid in an oyster-barrel battle of Bull Run, wears a wig. -jEfe ouaht to be shot in the back with a baked apple.” “I can’t help it, Blim,” said Bagshot, wiping his forehead; “it’s all owing to that young devil in the office. He has made a red-hot paper. Just wait, and I’ll fix things.” Hardly had he done so before young Cooley appeared. “ Col. Bagshot,” Announced he, “you area lying scoundrel! This is a nice thing to put imyour blackguard sheet about a young lady:” “Society Items.—Miss Cooley, the old girl on South .street, waltzes around in a patent bustle in the hope of catching a fellow. But she can’t—not even if she lay«J.the paint on twice as thick as she ddes now.” But Bagshot didn’t stop to hear it He flew across the square and into the Union Office like a flash. No one was there. *That able assistant editor, warned by a friend unknown. had dusted forever. Lying on the desk was a Union folded so that this notice caught Bagshot’s §ye: “Literary - Mkms.—The baldheaded snipe who preteuds to run this paper nas gone to New Yoyk. We expect to hear every moment, of his sentence to Bing Sing for arson and highway-robbery. tThA'oitizens ofChodunk should congratulate themselves if the colonel does not disgrace his village by being hung for infanticide.” Bagshot never intend? to employ another assistant editor, ipid journalists in search of a situation will find it healthy to keep away from. him. .