Next to her father and Granny Flynn, Maida loved Billy Potter better
than anybody in the world. He was so little that she could never
decide whether he was a boy or a man. His chubby, dimply face was
the pinkest she had ever seen. From it twinkled a pair of blue eyes
the merriest she had ever seen. And falling continually down into
his eyes was a great mass of flaxen hair, the most tousled she had
ever seen.

Billy Potter lived in New York. He earned his living by writing for
newspapers and magazines. Whenever there was a fuss in Wall
Street—and the papers always blamed “Buffalo” Westabrook if this
happened—Billy Potter would have a talk with Maida’s father. Then he
wrote up what Mr. Westabrook said and it was printed somewhere. Men
who wrote for the newspapers were always trying to talk with Mr.
Westabrook. Few of them ever got the chance. But “Buffalo”
Westabrook never refused to talk with Billy Potter. Indeed, the two
men were great friends.

“He’s one of the few reporters who can turn out a good story and
tell it straight as I give it to him,” Maida had once heard her
father say. Maida knew that Billy could turn out good stories—he had
turned out a great many for her.

“What has imagination to do with it?” Mr. Westabrook repeated.

“It would have a great deal to do with it, I fancy,” Billy Potter
answered, “if somebody would only imagine the right thing.”

“Well, imagine it yourself,” Mr. Westabrook snarled. “Imagination
seems to be the chief stock-in-trade of you newspaper men.”