"They say," observed Fowler, the star man of The Patriot, "he covers his
assignment in taxicabs."

"He gets the news," murmured Mallory, summing up in that phrase all the
encomiums which go to the perfect praise of the natural-born reporter.

"And he writes it," put in Van Cleve of The Courier. "Lord, how that boy
can write! Why, a Banneker two-sticks stands out as if it were printed
in black-face."

"I've never seen him around," remarked Glidden. "What does he do with
himself besides work?"

"Nothing, I imagine," answered Mallory. "One of the cubs reports finding
him at the Public Library, before ten o'clock in the morning, surrounded
by books on journalism. He's a serious young owl."

"It doesn't get into his copy, then," asserted "Parson" Gale, political
expert for The Ledger.

"Nor into his appearance. He certainly dresses like a flower of the
field. Even the wrinkles in his clothes have the touch of high-priced
Fifth Avenue."

"Must be rich," surmised Fowler. "Taxis for assignments and Fifth-Avenue
raiment sound like real money."

"Nobody knows where he got it, then," said Tommy Burt. "Used to be a
freight brakeman or something out in the wild-and-woolly. When he
arrived, he was dressed very proud and stiff like a Baptist elder going