Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/184

160 reporter's doubts came trooping back. He remembered now that he had never written a line of "ship-news" for the Standard. He blushed to confess to himself that his life on salt water had been bounded by the decks of river excursion steamers. And what had he ever done worth the notice of the managing editor? Of course, he had worked hard, and the world, at least in fiction, occasionally rewarded honest merit in lowly places with unexpected largess. But any "star man" of the staff would have given a week's salary for such a note as this from the chief executive of the Standard. And he, James Arbuthnot Wilson, was indubitably the rawest and humblest recruit of that keen and rough-riding squadron of talent.

An inevitable reaction swung his mood into the forebodings. The train was loafing along the upper reaches of Delaware Bay when he re-read the intoxicating note, and caught himself repeating "Dear Mr. Wilson," with a sudden glimmer of association. In another miserable moment the youth's beautiful dream was wrenched