“Yes, he is,” the city editor had replied. “He has made a remarkable record so far. I don’t know of any young man who has taken hold as he has. It seems to be intuitive with him to know a piece of news when he sees it, and there is no limit to his energy. The best of him is that although he must know he is doing unusually good work, it doesn’t spoil him. He is just as ready to go out on a small affair as a big one. But you know I make it a rule not to raise a new man’s salary in the first six months. However, I can make it up to him by giving him specials to write and in other ways, to give him more money. He must have more, of course. He doesn’t seem to think of anything but his work; no poker games on his mind, no billiards, no little club rooms, no rum, nothing but solid hard work.” “Such men must be encouraged,” the doctor laughed; “for they’re not plenty.” Ignorant of all this, Dick took his few spare hours to write his first special, sitting up several times long after Darling reached home. “It’s a jolly place to write, here in the dining-room,” he said one night when Darling came in at half-past two; “after the folks are in bed. The light is so good, too. Somehow I never could take any pleasure in reading or writing at night when I lived in a furnished room, because the gas was always so dim.” “Didn’t any of the fellows tell you how to manage that?” Darling laughed. “Of course you never could get a fair light in a furnished room, because the landladies plug up the tips of the burners. That lets only a little gas through, and saves bills, you know. You should have bought a burner of your own and a pair of nippers, and unscrewed the landlady’s burner when you wanted to read or write, and put your own on. That’s the way all the boys do.” “Maybe you do that in your room here,” Dick suggested with a twinkle in his eye. “I don’t have to, Dick,” Darling replied. “There are no mean tricks about that mother of yours--nor your sister either,” he added, and then blushed a little because Dick smiled. There was no doubt of Dick’s ability to write a good special after his first one appeared. It was not merely a correct account of his experiences in looking for the chief of police and Sterling’s body; all the details were truthfully given, but they were given in such a way as to bring out every funny point to the best advantage. It was a comical article from beginning to end, and Dick was set down for a humorist as well as an accurate reporter of facts. There was some glory in this, and some profit, too; for thereafter most of the subjects that might be turned into humorous specials were handed over to Dick.