“Nevertheless, I’m going to turn it down,” Carroll declared firmly. “I won’t hear of your doing this thing, I’m not going to have it on my conscience that I was the cause of your being sent to jail. It’s no use arguing with me, old man; I positively refuse to let you run this risk on my account.” “Very well,” said the Camera Chap quietly. “Of course, I have no desire to press my services on you if you don’t want them. But I shall go ahead with this camera campaign, just the same. The pictures will make an interesting addition to my scrapbook.” “You crazy Indian! Surely you don’t mean that?” “I certainly do. If you think I’m going to miss all this fun just because you won’t give me a job on your paper, you’re very much mistaken. Of course, I should greatly prefer to have the snapshots published in the _Bulletin_. I really think that they’ll be worth publishing. But since you can’t see it that way, I suppose I’ll have to be satisfied with adding them to my private collection.” Carroll glanced searchingly at his friend’s face and was convinced of his earnestness. Then, with a laugh, he extended his big hand. “You win, old fellow,” he said. “Since you’re determined to go ahead anyway, I’d be all kinds of a fool if I were to fail to take advantage of this opportunity. The chances are about a million to one that you’ll be nabbed and thrown into jail on your first attempt; but if by a miracle you should succeed in getting any pictures, I’ll be tickled to death to use them in the _Bulletin_.” “Good boy!” exclaimed Hawley joyously. “That’ll be much more satisfactory to me than pasting them in my scrapbook. And now that I’m a full-fledged member of your staff, Fred--beg pardon; I should say boss--have you any instructions for me? Any particular picture assignment you wish me to go out and cover?” “Oh, no; I shall not give you any assignments. I’ll leave it entirely to you to select your own subjects. Anything will do. No matter what the snapshots may be--even if it’s only a picture of an electric-light pole--the extraordinary circumstances will make it of sufficient value to be worth a place on our front page.” “Very good,” said Hawley; “I am inclined to agree with you that it will be the best policy to give me a free hand. But I assure you,” he added, with a chuckle, “I have no intention of snapshotting such uninteresting subjects as electric-light poles. The kind of pictures I intend to go after will have a little more life to them than that. In fact, I have an idea now for a group of snapshots which I think would be of great interest to the _Bulletin’s_ readers. If I can put it across, I think it will make even more of a hit than those pictures of the sleeping police chief.” “What’s the idea?” Carroll inquired, with a little more eagerness than he was desirous of manifesting.