“It broke up in a fight. The candidates tried to speak, but the crowd wouldn’t let ’em. They called ’em names, and then they made a rush, and upset the stand, and there was a free fight. I couldn’t hear any of the speeches, so I came away.” “You what?” asked the editor, trying to speak calmly. The room seemed strangely quiet. “I came away. I thought you sent me to report the political meeting, but there wasn’t any. It broke up in a fight,” repeated the reporter. “I thought you said you were a newspaper man,” the city editor remarked. “I wouldn’t have hired you if I knew you had had no experience.” “I did have some. I—I,” began the unfortunate one. “It must have been as society scribbler on the _Punktown Monthly Pink Tea Gazette_,” exclaimed Mr. Emberg. “Why, you don’t know enough about the business to report a Sunday school picnic. “If you were sent to a house to get an account of a wedding,” went on Mr. Emberg, “and while there the house should burn down, and all the people be killed, I suppose you would come back and say there wasn’t any wedding, it was a fire! Would you?” “No—no, sir.” “Well, I guess you would! I don’t believe you’re cut out for the newspaper business. The idea of not reporting a meeting because it broke up in a fight! It’s enough to make—but never mind! You can go to the cashier and get what money is coming to you. We can’t afford to have mistakes like that occur. This is the best story in many a day. Why, they must have had a regular riot up there, according to the _Scorcher_. Here, Smith,” the city editor went on, turning to an older reporter, “see what there is in this, and fix up a story,” and Mr. Emberg handed over the article he had clipped from the rival paper. It was a bad beat on the _Leader_. “I hope I never make a mistake like that,” thought Larry, as he turned in his article. “My, that was a call-down!” CHAPTER II AMATEUR NIGHT The unfortunate reporter who had made the mistake, and who had been discharged in consequence, left the room. He had gained his position under somewhat false pretenses, and so there was little sympathy felt for him. “We don’t want careless work on the _Leader_,” went on Mr. Emberg, speaking to no one in particular. “We want the news, and those who have no noses for it had better look alive. We’re in the news business, and that’s what we have to give the people.” The reporter, to whom Mr. Emberg had given the clipping, soon ascertained that, in the main, it was correct. So a story was made up concerning the Eleventh Ward meeting, and run in the second edition of the _Leader_, much to the disgust of the city editor, who hated to be “beaten.”