Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/210

 threw it far from him into the boiling wake of the screws, and stuck his hands in his pockets, smiling vindictively. Then, turning his back on New York, he stepped gayly off the ferry, jumped into a familiar train, went down to a certain rural university, and strutted for twenty-four hours.

Here he was not a Mr. Knox, one of the young reporters, but Hammie Knox, the old star half-back; he was not sworn at over the telephone for falling down on news, but joyously grabbed and welcomed by those who knew him well enough, and stared at and worshipped by those who did not dare, and it felt very good. But on a certain Wednesday morning he left his pipe in another coat.

He had, as usual, cast himself comfortably into a whole seat in the smoking-car; but when he felt in his pockets he only found some copy-paper, which had been there for weeks.

He could not smoke, nor were there any other "old" graduates to talk to on the way down. No novels or newspapers are sold on these trains after leaving, and his own paper was floating down the bay, un-