Jimmy Price turned, and it became apparent why he had been saddled with the nickname of Wiggly. In moments of inner excitement or of strong emotion, Jimmy's protuberant ears became animate objects. They were unruly ears, always wiggling when he least wanted them to; it seemed that Jimmy had absolutely no control over his ears. They were wiggling now, for their owner sensed what was coming. He turned slowly and retraced his steps toward the city editor's desk, which was set up on a platform. The boys called it "the throne," and certainly no monarch ever held more despotic sway than Caleb Scoggins, the city editor of _The Star_. Scoggins was a good city editor, but he was a man of strong prejudices, and he was prejudiced against Wiggly's animated ears. It annoyed him to look down the room and have a perfectly good idea take sudden flight, as he was forced to stare in fascinated, almost hypnotized, interest at a pair of ears doing a sort of uncanny dance on the side of a man's head, while the owner of those remarkable appendages bent industriously over his typewriter entirely unaware of his innocent havoc. Bob Roddy, the star rewrite man, that high-salaried word slinger, whose supple brain and nimble fingers could paint a column word picture with no more material than a five-line news bulletin, was, likely as not, to be discovered staring, vacant-eyed, at "Wiggly" Price, while the desk was waiting for the rest of his story. And Jimmy Price was a good reporter, a rattling good one, so good, in fact, that Scoggins had been at a loss for an excuse to fire him. But now he had the excuse. "Price," he rasped, "you fell down on the Hammerslaw kidnaping case." His voice had the tone of doom, but Wiggly, except for the renewed twitching of his ears, moved neither of body nor tongue. He was too wise to point out that he had registered this one failure to fifty successes, or to remind Scoggins that no reporter can bat a thousand in the news-gathering league. "Where you belong," went on the city editor with withering sarcasm, "is in a side-show tent, along with the rest of the freaks, not in a newspaper office. As a reporter----" He broke off, as the telephone rang; mechanically he spun half around in his chair and pulled the instrument toward him. "Yeah?" he grunted. Etta Griggs had chosen this opportune moment to call. "Is this the editor of _The Star_?" came her sweetest, most cultured tones over the wire. Scoggins admitted it with a grunt. "This is Miss Griggs, the playwright, and I am calling to give you a--a scoop, I believe you call it." Had it been a busy hour, Scoggins would have switched the call over to his assistant; experience had hardened him to persons calling him up to give him a scoop. Usually they didn't pan out, these scoops. "What is it, Miss Griggs?" he inquired with a deference that he never used toward his staff.