"For me?" gasped Dick. "Yes, of course. Didn't you write this yarn for me? Of course 'The Blade' is only a country daily, and our space rates are not high. But see here, Prescott, I'll pay you a dollar a column for anything you write for us that possesses local interest enough to warrant our printing it. Now, while going to the High School, why can't you turn reporter in your spare time, and earn a little pocket money?" Again Dick gasped. He had never thought of himself as a budding young journalist. Yet, as Mr. Pollock inquired, "Why not?" Why not, indeed! "Well, how do you think you'd like to work for us?" asked Mr. Pollock, after a pause. "Of course you would not leave the High School. You would not even neglect your studies in the least. But a young man who knows almost everybody in Gridley, and who goes about town as much as you do, ought to be able to pick up quite a lot of newsy stuff." "I wonder if I could make a reporter out of myself," Dick pondered. "The way to answer that question is to try," replied Mr. Pollock. "For myself, I think that, with some training, you'd make a good reporter. By the way, Prescott, have you planned on what you mean to be when you're through school?" "Why, it isn't settled yet," Dick replied slowly. "Father and mother hope to be able to send me further than the High School, and so they've suggested that I wait until I'm fairly well through before I decide on what I want to be. Then, if it's anything that a college course would help me to, they'll try to provide it." "What would you like most of all in the world to be?" inquired the editor of "The Blade." "A soldier!" replied young Prescott, with great promptness and emphasis. "Hm! The soldier's trade is rather dull these days," replied the editor. "We're becoming a peaceful people, and the arbitrator's word does the work that the sword used to do." "This country has been in several wars," argued Dick, "and will be in others yet to come. In times of peace a soldier's duty is to fit himself for the war time that is to come. Oh, I believe there's plenty, always, that an American soldier ought to be doing." "Perhaps. But newspaper work is the next best thing to soldiering, anyway. Prescott, my boy, the reporter of to-day is the descendant of the old free-lance soldier of fortune. It takes a lot of nerve to be a reporter, sometimes, and to do one's work just as it should be done. The reporter's life is almost as full of adventure as the soldier's. And there are no 'peace times' for the reporter. He never knows when his style of 'war' will break out. But I must get back to my work. Are you going to try to bring us in good matter at a dollar a column?" "Yes, I am, thank you," Dick replied, unhesitatingly, now. "Good," nodded Mr. Pollock, opening one of the smaller drawers over his desk. "Here's something you can put on and wear." He held out to the boy an oblong little piece of metal, gold plated.