It was a surprise to Dick that nobody said a word to him about drinking ale while they were eating. All the others drank it and after supper smoked cigars, but Dick neither drank nor smoked. Instead of being urged, he was left to follow his own inclinations. And the best men in the party, he was glad to notice, treated him like a professional equal. Some of the men there were favorably known in every newspaper office in New York, and Dick had often heard of them. He was too modest even to think that it was because he had attended to his work faithfully and well, without bluster or boasting, that these men liked him; but that was the reason. They read him as easily as they read the Age man, but with different results. Dick and the World man were quartered in the same room for the night, for the little hotel had not seven sleeping rooms to spare. “I’m afraid it looked unsociable not to take a glass of ale or a cigar with the rest at supper,” Dick said before they went to sleep; “but I have made up my mind neither to drink nor smoke, and I couldn’t break my resolution.” “Unsociable!” his companion repeated; “why, you were one of the jolliest fellows in the party! There’s nothing unsociable about not drinking ale when you don’t want it. The talk about drinking for sociability’s sake is very much in your eye, Sumner. When a man drinks it’s because he wants the stimulant, not because he wants to be sociable. That was why I drank the ale, and I’ll warrant it was the same with all the other fellows.” “Well, it was very kind in you all not to urge me to drink or smoke when I didn’t want to,” Dick said. “No; you’re mistaken!” the World man retorted, resting his head upon his hand, and his elbow on the pillow. “Excuse me; but I’m a much older man than you, Sumner, and I know these things better. Reporters are supposed to have some sense, and a sensible man never urges a fellow to drink who doesn’t want to. When a man tries to urge you against your will, it is safe to set that man down for a fool. “Not only that,” he went on, “but it’s only a softshell who could be induced to drink when he didn’t want to. Such a man would hardly have brains enough to make a good reporter, and I hear you’re a pretty good one, Sumner. No, sir! I take my share of drinks, I’ll admit, but if I didn’t want one, I should like to see the man who could induce me to take it; and I should have a very poor opinion of any man who tried, too. However, it’s after midnight, and the early train goes at six;” and the World man, totally disregarding the hygienic principles that he often wrote paragraphs about, drew his head completely under the covers. Dick thought that he had just fallen asleep for a moment, though in reality he had slept for several hours, when at half-past five the red-haired, freckle-faced boy of the hotel made a tremendous racket with his knuckles against the doors of the reporters’ rooms.