“He is valuable as a signer of reporters’ checks,” Dick laughed; “and when a man runs short of money in a distant city he is the most important person in the world.” The interruptions in the novel-writing were always provoking, but they could not be avoided. Sometimes Dick was kept away for days at a time, and on one occasion for a whole week. “Never mind, I’m fresh for a new start,” he said to himself at such times, and took up the thread where he had laid it down. Mrs. Sumner and Florrie took great pains to keep the flat quiet while he was at work, for somehow, though he could write newspaper articles with the whole office talking around him, the least noise disturbed him when he was at work on his novel. “Sh!” he heard one little girl say to another in the hall one day as they passed the door of his flat; “don’t talk so loud, there’s a man writing a book in there!” But he could not even smile just then, for he was trying to work his way through a difficult situation. Almost the only newspaper work that Dick really enjoyed while he was engaged upon the novel came to him about the time that he had reached the twelfth chapter; and perhaps the way that came to him had something to do with his enjoyment of it. When he went into the office Darling handed him a memorandum, and with the memorandum a brief note from the editor-in-chief, not intended for Dick’s eyes. “Send the best writer you have on this job,” the note said; “get Sumner if possible.” “This job” was to write a complete description of the working of the New York Fire Department, and to do it properly Dick must go to an engine-house and live there like a fireman till the engine was called out to at least one fire; and then go out with it and help handle the hose. To be allowed to do this he must go first to the department headquarters in Mercer Street and get a permit. “That is very nice in the old man to call me the best writer in the office,” he said to Darling. “I only hope the publishers will think so when I send them my novel.” He said nothing about the note to any one else, except his mother and Florrie, but he thought about it a great deal. “The best writer in the office! And the Transport is everywhere admitted to be the best written newspaper in America!” He could not help feeling elated over such a compliment as he rode up to Mercer Street. “Here, Dick!” he kept saying to himself; “Dick, wash the rollers!” “Dick, come here!” and then by contrast, “Send the best writer in the office; get Sumner if possible.” But experience had given a veneering to his exterior, and he would not for any money have let his companions know that he gave the note a second thought. “I think we had better send you down to Number Four in Liberty Street,” the chief of the fire department said when Dick made known his mission. “There are a great many fires in that district, and Number Four is the headquarters of the chief of the First Battalion. He can give you the information you require.”