Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/148

 agreeableness for a couple of years would not hurt him; and it would be very pleasant afterward to read that "From the year so-and-so till the year so-and-so the author engaged in newspaper work; then, with the appearance of his first book, Rufus Carrington"—that would make a fine sonorous mouthful, "Rufus Carrington, author"— …

This was a responsible assignment, and he meant to do well with it. It was right that he should, because they were thinking of dropping him at the end of the week, along with a couple of other cubs who were not catching on rapidly enough. The only reason they had sent him up to get the interview was that a good part of the staff, which was small, was up across the Harlem this afternoon on the big railroad catastrophe, and the rest of the good reporters were down the bay on a grounded-steamer story, and the regular political men were off on more important interviews.

At least they thought they were going to be more important. The interview with the Secretary of State turned out to be the story