“If you had told some of us what you had when you came in,” said Mr. Herrick, the reporter who had rewritten Dick’s article so skilfully, “we’d have put you on the right track. But don’t worry over it; you look as if you’d cried yourself to sleep.” “Not quite as bad as that,” Dick answered with something of a smile. “But I did have a very bad night of it. You see I was kept so late that I missed my train for home, so I went to the Astor House and took a room. It’s a terrible noisy place over there.” “It’s worse than noisy,” Mr. Herrick laughed, “it’s too expensive for a young reporter. You’re not living out of town, are you?” Dick explained that he lived in Russellville with his mother and sister. “Oh, that will never do!” Mr. Herrick exclaimed. “No reporter can hope to live out of town. Our hours are so irregular that you’ll miss your train about five nights a week. The best way is to rent a furnished room and live in the city. That’s the way most of us do. It leaves a man free to work at all hours.” “Yes, that’s a reporter’s life,” said young Tom Brownell, who was only two or three years older than Dick. “A furnished room, meals in a Park Row beanery, and empty pockets on Saturday night. That’s all we can look forward to.” “Don’t stuff the boy, Brownell,” said Mr. Banks, whose seat was near. “Brownell is a space man, Mr. Sumner, who makes about sixty dollars a week and boards in a hotel. But it is a fact that you’ll not be able to live out of town. You cannot do better than rent a little room for the present and take your meals in whatever restaurant you happen to be near.” This was a new idea to Dick, and he had plenty of time to think it over while waiting for an assignment. Russellville was so near, it had not occurred to him that he would not be able to go home every night; but if he should be kept late often, and miss his train four or five nights a week, the hotel bills would soon use up his salary. Still, there was an objection to his living in a furnished room and restaurants. “If I am to pay my way separately in the city,” he considered, “what am I going to have left for mother and Florrie? Fifteen dollars a week is a great deal of money, but money seems to disappear very fast here in the city.” He had plenty to do on that second day, but it seemed to him that it was all work that an errand boy might have done. First he was sent to a steamship office to inquire about an overdue vessel, then down to Wall Street to carry a message to the financial reporter; and in the evening he had two little meetings to attend, but they were of no importance, and he had not a single line to write. “It’s tough, isn’t it?” he said to Randall, when his last job was done and he was free to go home. “I’ve not had a line to write to-day.”