“Oh my, no.” Percy spoke for them all. “We can’t.”

“Why not?”

Percy gave a simple shrug of his shoulders. “We’ve never done it that way before.”

Famous last words.

“They’re completely resistant to change,” Gabe complained to Earl. “If it hasn’t been done that way, it won’t be done that way, can’t be done that way!”

An answer phone, Beatrice had told him, would hurt people’s feelings. “They’ll think we don’t want to speak to them.”

“You think they don’t get that idea when you don’t answer the blasted phone now?”

“They know I’m busy. They’ll ring back.”

To do offset printing would offend the Fuge brothers, John the printer had said. The Fuge brothers came every Wednesday and helped with the typesetting. “They’ll think they aren’t needed,” John told Gabe. “We wouldn’t want that.”

“Whose feelings would the computer hurt?” Gabe had asked.

“No one,” Percy said. “But we haven’t the electricity to handle it. Blow a fuse, we would. Shut everything down. Wouldn’t want that now, would we?”

“It wouldn’t take any more juice than an electric typewriter,” Gabe argued, then realized that they were all staring at him. He looked around. There were no electric typewriters, only manuals.

“We’re traditional here, you know,” Percy said. “We’ve a history to uphold. The Buckworthy Gazette is An Institution. The journalistic equivalent of Stanton Abbey, if you will!”

Well, that Gabe could certainly agree with. There was a hell of a lot of rising damp in the employ of the Buckworthy Gazette, too.

What would Randall do?

He could, of course, ask. But he wasn’t about to call Randall and admit ignorance.

“Well, things are going to change. I want all of you in my office for a meeting at three to discuss how we can turn this paper around.”

They all stared. Then they began to shake their heads.