The correspondent smiled. “Not exactly. It’s a scandal, all right, and a whopping big one, but a little farther from home than that. You remember that chap Felix, President of Baracoa, who skipped with the national treasury a couple of years ago?” The managing editor nodded. “What about him? Have they caught the rascal?” The Washington correspondent lowered his voice. “According to the tip I’ve got, he never went away,” he announced. “It was all a frame-up on the part of his political enemies, headed by Portiforo. They’ve got him locked up in a dungeon of El Torro fortress, where he’s been ever since the night he’s supposed to have beaten it.” Stephens smiled skeptically. “What kind of tobacco do you smoke?” he sneered. “It isn’t a pipe dream,” the other said earnestly. “At least, I’m pretty well satisfied that the tip is straight goods. It comes from a most authoritative source.” He dropped his voice even lower. “I got it from Attorney General Cooper.” The managing editor’s face lighted up. “From Cooper himself?” The correspondent hesitated. “Well, I didn’t exactly hear it from his own lips, but it came from him, all right. The fact is I got the tip from one of the servants of the attorney general’s household--his butler. But the fellow is absolutely to be relied on. I have had him on my pay roll for the last six months, and he’s never given me a wrong steer yet. You remember that scoop last winter about the wife of that European ambassador losing twenty-five thousand at bridge? Well, that tip came from him. That chap is a regular bear for news. There is mighty little going on at the capital that he doesn’t hear about.” Stephens grinned appreciatively. “Where did he get this fairy story about Felix?” he demanded. “From Mrs. Cooper’s maid. You know that until recently Señora Felix has been stopping at the attorney general’s house. She and Mrs. Cooper are very chummy. Naturally they talked together frequently about the matter, and the maid managed to overhear most of what they said, and passed it along to my trusty informant. It seems that the women have been getting at the attorney general to put the proposition before the president, and have him order an investigation, and a few weeks ago Cooper brought it up at a cabinet meeting.” Stephens became more interested. “Have you asked the president about it?” he inquired. “No, indeed! I was afraid that instead of telling me anything, he’d make me promise not to print a line about what I already knew, and then I’d have to take my choice between passing up the story or being in bad at the White House. Either that, or else, seeing that the _News_ has the tip, he’d hand out the story to the whole Washington bunch; for the president makes it a rule not to play any favorites.”