“Well, I am glad to hear that,” Mr. Davis said when he had heard the whole story. “I am really glad to hear that, Dick. You did them a first-rate piece of work, and you have evidently established yourself in the good opinion of the night editor. You don’t know how much that means, but I do. I know Dr. Goode, the night editor, very well. Almost every newspaper man around New York knows him and loves him, for he is one of the dearest old men in the world. He is always on the lookout for bright young men who can be turned into good reporters; and if I am not much mistaken he has you in his eye and you will hear from him again.” “But I had only given the young editor a very brief account of the accident when Dr. Goode took me in charge, sir,” Dick interrupted. “That’s it exactly,” Mr. Davis continued; “and Dr. Goode overheard you, and he saw in a minute that you had the story properly laid out in your mind and knew how to handle it. That was why he took you out of the young editor’s hands and looked after you himself. You see the young man, the night city editor, has charge of the city news at night, but Dr. Goode, the night editor, has charge of the whole paper at night, under the managing editor. Your plain, straightforward way of writing evidently pleased him, and I am afraid that before the year is up I shall lose one of the best office boys I ever had.” “Thank you, sir,” said Dick, blushing furiously. “You are very kind to say so; but I don’t think there is any danger of that.” There was great danger of it, however, and steps to bring it about were in progress at that very moment. “Don’t take too much credit to yourself, though, Dick,” Mr. Davis went on with a smile. “I don’t want to see you spoiled at the start. Remember that circumstances had more to do with it than you had. If Russellville were not such a little out-of-the-way place, there would be some newspaper correspondent here, and then you would have had no chance at all. If Dr. Goode had not accidentally overheard you telling the story, he could not have taken a fancy to your way of telling it. But that is the way things always go; we are creatures of accident. The bright man takes advantage of the accidents and turns them to good account, and that is exactly what you did.” Dick might not have set type as complacently that morning if he had known all that the night editor did before he went home. The young printer was hardly out of the Transport office before Dr. Goode took up a small slip of paper and wrote a brief note to the city editor with his ever-present blue pencil. “Dear John,” he said in the note, “the young man who did the Governor Wright beat for us this morning is Richard Sumner, of Russellville. “He has a nose for news and he writes good English. “You might make a reporter of him, if you have a vacancy. “Yours, J. B. G.”