“I’m afraid I am not as good a speller as I ought to be, sir,” he added doubtfully. The editor smiled. “That doesn’t make the least difference,” he said. “One of the best reporters I ever had spelled door d-o-a-r. If a reporter can get the news, the printers will see to his spelling.” They talked for ten or fifteen minutes, and the editor liked Dick’s honest, manly way. “Well,” said he in conclusion, “we will take you on trial as a reporter. You can begin to-morrow morning, if you like, and report to me at ten o’clock. The salary will be fifteen dollars a week.” The salary will be fifteen dollars a week. The salary will be fifteen dollars a week. Dick kept saying it over and over to himself as he went down the stairs. Perhaps there was some mistake about it. No, that was what the editor said, fifteen dollars a week. He was rather alarmed at it. For such a salary they would expect more of him than he was capable of. Fif-teen dollars a w-e-e-k! Fifteen times fifty-two is 780; seven hundred and eighty dollars a year! When Dick reported for duty the next morning he felt that he was beginning a new life. Mr. Davis had released him immediately from the Record office, and he was no longer a printer’s boy. He had a vague idea that he would be sent out to a good street corner to pick up some of the things that are constantly occurring in New York. Maybe he would happen upon a fire, or it might be the catching of a pickpocket, or somebody run over. But his first morning’s experience was very different from this. After reporting to the city editor he was told to sit down and wait; and he sat in one of the chairs from ten o’clock till half-past two without anybody paying the slightest attention to him. Other men came in and got their orders and went out again, but Dick seemed to be entirely forgotten. “I wonder whether Mr. Brown thinks I’m too young, now he’s had a second look at me,” he said to himself. “It’s very strange. Here they’re paying me two dollars and a half a day, and they don’t give me anything to do.” It was a great relief to him when one of the reporters, a man whom he remembered seeing in the office on the night of his first visit, came up and spoke to him. Dick remembered him particularly because he was the handsomest man in the office and seemed to have a pleasant word for everybody. He was very dark, with a silky black mustache, and was extremely well dressed. “Well, my boy,” said this handsome reporter, “you’re going to be a newspaper man, are you?” “I hope so, sir,” Dick answered. “But I’ve not done much so far. They haven’t given me anything to do yet to-day.”