“Yes, I know all about it, my boy. Randall did not want to tell me, but I wound it out of him because I like you. I like all young men who have brains. I understand what the temptations are; I have been through it myself. I don’t want to lecture you, but merely to put you in the way of seeing for yourself. Look about the office among all the men you know, and you will see that the really successful ones keep away from the little clubs and the cards and the drink. A dissipated man may flourish for a time if he is exceptionally brilliant, but he is sure to be left behind at last. See that for yourself, and with your brains you will need no other argument.” Dick went home to Russellville that night for the first time in over a week, and his mother and sister gave him such a welcome as they considered due to a distinguished young writer and journalist, as they called him--half in jest and half in earnest. “Say, sis,” he expostulated from the depths of the biggest rocking-chair, “do me a favor, will you? Never call me a journalist again. You don’t know how the real reporters and writers laugh at that word. They say that a journalist is a decayed penny-a-liner who comes ’round on payday and tries to borrow a quarter. The fellows who do the work and make the money are content to be called reporters.” “Very well,” Florrie laughed; “then I’ll always call you a reporter.” She could not help noticing the change in Dick--a change for the better. He was so much more manly, so self-possessed, and he was dressed so much better. “But I want you to tell me about Sing Sing,” she went on. “Did you really go into that big prison and see the warden? And did you see that splendid man who obeyed orders about the switch, though he thought it was going to kill ever so many people? How do you ever have courage to ask questions of everybody, Dick?” “Well, to tell you the truth, that was a pretty hard pull at first,” Dick replied. “The first time I was sent to interview a man I walked up and down outside for half an hour before I raised courage to go in. But that feeling soon wears off; I don’t think of being diffident about it now. Indeed, I think I rather like it. I want to take you and mother into the city with me in two or three weeks to help me interview a man.” “O Dick!” they both exclaimed, “how could we do that?” “Easily,” Dick answered, smiling over his little mystery. “You see the man is a real estate agent; he has flats to let.” “Do you mean it, Dick?” his mother asked. “Do you feel secure enough in the office to take such an important step?” The subject of taking a small flat in the city and all living together was thoroughly discussed. Mrs. Sumner had a little income of her own, and by uniting this with Dick’s salary a cheap flat could be rented, not more than twenty dollars a month. “And it would be a positive saving to me,” Dick argued; “the restaurants are so expensive.