Thereupon the editor described Mr. Cantwell’s visit to the bank.  “Now, I’ve got a still further side to the story,” Dick continued, and repeated the story told by the freshmen of how Mrs. Cantwell also had carried the money to the bank, and then, still carrying it, had waited for her husband at the school gateway.

Editor Pollock leaned back, laughing until the tears rolled down his cheeks.

“I’m sorry for the good lady’s discomfiture,” explained the editor, presently.  “But the whole story is very, very funny.”

“Now, I guess you know all the facts,” finished Dick Prescott, rising.

“Yes, but I haven’t a single reporter about.”  Then, after a pause, “See here, Prescott, why couldn’t you write this up for me?”

“I?” repeated Dick, astonished.  “I never wrote a line for publication in my life.”

“Everyone who does, has to make a start some time,” replied Mr. Pollock.  “And I believe you could write it up all right, too.  See here, Prescott, just go over to that desk.  There’s a stack of copy paper there.  Write it briefly and crisply, and, for delicacy’s sake, leave out all that relates to Mrs. Cantwell.  No use in dragging a woman into a hazing scrape.”

Dick went over to the desk, picking up a pen.  For the fist three or four minutes he sat staring at the paper, the desk, the floor, the wall and the street door.  But Mr. Pollock paid no heed to him.  Then, finally, Dick began to write.  As he wrote a grin came to his face.  That grin broadened as he wrote on.  At last he took the pages over to Mr. Pollock.

“I don’t suppose that’s what you want,” he said, his face very red, “but the main facts are all there.”

Laying down his own pen Mr. Pollock read rapidly but thoughtfully.  The editor began to laugh again.  Then he laid down the last sheet.

“Prescott, that’s well done.  There’s a good reporter lurking somewhere inside of you.”

Thrusting one hand down into a pocket Mr. Pollock brought out a half-dollar, which he tendered to Dick.

“What am I to do with this?” asked the young sophomore.

“Anything you please,” replied the editor.  “The money’s for you.”

“For me?” gasped Dick.

“Yes, of course.  Didn’t you write this yarn for me?  Of course ‘The Blade’ is only a country daily, and our space rates are not high.  But see here, Prescott, I’ll pay you a dollar a column for anything you write for us that possesses local interest enough to warrant our printing it.  Now, while going to the High School, why can’t you turn reporter in your spare time, and earn a little pocket money?”

Again Dick gasped.  He had never thought of himself as a budding young journalist.  Yet, as Mr. Pollock inquired, “Why not?” Why not, indeed!

“Well, how do you think you’d like to work for us?” asked Mr. Pollock, after a pause.  “Of course you would not leave the High School.  You would not even neglect your studies in the least.  But a young man who knows almost everybody in Gridley, and who goes about town as much as you do, ought to be able to pick up quite a lot of newsy stuff.”