“Well, you’ve got long legs, Benson,” retorted the jovial Hazard. “You can stand it. Now I’m not so well fixed that way. Bellairs, there, ought to be given a chance at that. He wouldn’t be getting so fat, by jing!” The one called Jock also answered to the name of Bellairs. “You people don’t do so much,” he replied, grinning cheerfully. “If you had my job you wouldn’t be sitting here reading a newspaper. It takes work to be a police reporter.” “Is that so?” queried the little man banteringly. “You’re proof of it, I suppose? Why, you never did a good day’s work in your life!” “Give us a match, Bob, and shut up,” grinned the other. “You’re too noisy. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me yet tonight.” “I got your work! Is she over sixteen? Wish I had your job.” Jock folded up some copy paper and put it into his pocket and walked into the next room, where the little assistant was toiling away over the night’s grist of news. I still sat there, looking curiously on. “It’s pretty tough,” said the spirited Hazard, turning to me, “to go out on an assignment and then get nothing. I’d rather work hard over a good story any day, wouldn’t you?” “That’s the way I feel about it,” I replied. “It’s not much fun, sitting around. By the way, do you know whose desk this is? I’ve been sitting at it all evening.” “It doesn’t belong to anybody at present. You might as well take it if you like it. There’s a vacant one over there next to Benson’s, if you like that better.” He waved toward the tall awkward scribe in the corner. “This is good enough,” I replied. “Take your choice. There’s no trouble about desks just now. The staff’s way down anyhow. You’re a stranger here, aren’t you?” “Yes; I only came down from Chicago yesterday.” “What paper’d jeh work on up there?” “The _Globe_ and _News_,” I answered, lying about the latter in order to give myself a better standing than otherwise I might have. “They’re good papers, aren’t they?” “Yes, pretty fair. The _News_ has the largest evening circulation.” “We have some good papers here too. This is one of the biggest. The _Post-Dispatch_ is pretty good too; it’s the biggest evening paper.” “Do you know how much circulation this paper has?” I inquired. “Oh, about fifty thousand, I should say. That’s not so much, compared to Chicago circulation, but it’s pretty big for down here. We have the biggest circulation of any paper in the Southwest. McCullagh’s one of the greatest editors in this country, outside of Dana in New York, the greatest of any. If McCullagh were in New York he’d be bigger than he is, by jing!” “Do you run many big news stories?” “Sometimes; not often. The _Globe_ goes very light on local news. They play up the telegraph on this paper because we go into Texas and Arkansas and Louisiana and all these other States around here. We use $400,000 worth of telegraph news here every year,” and he said it as though he were part owner of the paper. I liked him very much.