The Boy Grew Older Part 30

"Of course I did. I didn't stay all through it. I waited until Jack Dempsey knocked that old cow Larry Williams down for the third time and then I got bored and went out."

"But that was the story," cried Peter. "Can't you see that."

"Why Dempsey could knock out Larry Williams a hundred times in an afternoon," objected Pat.

"That isn't the point," Twice broke in. "News isn't things that might happen. News is things that do happen. When a reporter goes out on a story there are four things for him to remember."

"I know," said Pat. "When! Where! What! and Why!"

"Yes, and there are two ways of doing a story. One of them is the way I want it to be done. The other doesn't count. I don't want you to argue with me. I tell you that your story should have been about Larry Williams getting knocked out. Some day you'll learn why. Pat, I'm not going to fire you. You've got stuff. Deering's had a crack at you and so has your father. Now I'm going to see what I can do. You're to go back to New York this afternoon. Report at my office on Monday. Hereafter you'll get your a.s.signments from me and turn your copy over to me. I've never been licked yet and I'm not going to be licked now. I'm going to make a newspaperman of you or my name's not Rufus Twice."

After Twice had gone Peter asked, "Pat, what made you want to throw me down?"

"You don't think I made all this trouble for you on purpose?"

"Well, why did you go and write a story about Daredevil Oliver and leave Dempsey out of it?"

"It seemed so much more important to me. You'd have thought so too if you'd seen him. He just leaned back off the platform so slowly. He could have stopped himself any second. And then all of a sudden he couldn't.

And he started to fall."

"But the story was signed with my name. Didn't you think of that?"

"Of course I did."

"Didn't you remember that I'd get blamed for it."

Pat was pale with earnestness and almost crying. "I didn't think anybody'd be blamed. I wanted to do something for you."

"Do you mean to say," asked Peter in surprise, "that you thought it was as good a story as I'd write."

"I thought it was a better story. It was a better story than you ever wrote."

Peter was silent with astonishment. Where, he wondered, did his son Peter Neale, second, ever unearth such amazing and audacious confidence.

Suddenly it came to him that he was not the only parent. He remembered Maria. Obviously there was no use in arguing with Pat any further.

Indeed he was almost a little frightened at so bold a blaze of spirit.

"Well," he said at length, "what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to report to Mr. Twice on Monday," answered Pat.

Peter sent down and got a "Bulletin" in order to find out just what it was that Peter Neale had written. He read only the first line, "Can Jack Dempsey sock? Ask Larry Williams."

CHAPTER X

Not until after the big fight did Peter get back to the Bulletin office.

He found a subdued and cheerless Pat. "How are things going?" he asked.

"I'm learning a trade," said Pat.

Rufus Twice was more optimistic. "He's getting along fine," he reported.

"I flatter myself that he's picked up more of the newspaper angle on things in the last two weeks than he got in a whole year before this.

You see I call him into the office every afternoon and go over the paper with him and show him why we've used each story and the reason for handling it the way we do. He's been a good soldier. I'll tell you what I'll do. You take your vacation next week and I'll let him go with you.

You ought to have a month but I don't believe the syndicate can spare you. Three weeks is the best I can do."

Peter and Pat planned to go out in the country some place, but they kept putting it off and two weeks were gone before they decided on Westport, Conn., and bought the tickets. On the morning set for the journey Pat came into Peter's room with the paper.

"Don't let's go," he said.

"All right but why not."

"Maria Algarez is here. They've got her picture in the Bulletin. It isn't a very good one. She got in from Argentine yesterday afternoon."

"Maria Algarez here in New York? Where?"

"It doesn't say."

A messenger arrived with a letter a few hours later. Peter opened it and read:

"You must not hide from me. I have called up the Bulletin and they say you are not there. When I ask for the number of your house they tell me it is the rule that they must not tell. Is it, Peter, that so many ladies call you up? The next time I am more smart. I say that your father is very sick and that I am the nurse and must know where you are. But I should have known. It is twenty years and the flat it is the same. You are like that Peter. You do not change. I thought not to see you and Pat until next year in Paris but from Buenos Aires I decided suddenly I will go to New York. Here I am.

My hotel it is the Ritz. You and Pat you will come tonight at eight and have supper with me--Maria."

"I didn't want to go to Westport much anyway," said Pat.

He was more nervous than Peter when they came to the door of Maria's suite. She kissed Peter but Pat only held out his hand. Maria laughed.

"He does not know me. I know him. He is like the picture."

Pat was almost silent during supper. He spoke up only once. Maria was ordering. "We will have some vegetable," she said. "What is the name? I do not know the English. _Les epinards._"

"That's spinach," said Peter and added slyly. "Pat doesn't like spinach.

He won't want that."

"Yes, I do," said Pat promptly.

Peter smiled but he had the joke all to himself. Pat had forgotten.

After dinner they talked spa.r.s.ely with Peter doing most of the work.

Suddenly Maria said, "It is necessary that somebody he ask me."

Peter was puzzled, but Pat understood. "I've waited for five years to hear you sing. Won't you?"

"It is nice, but it is the twenty years I have waited. First you must sing."

"I can't."

"Maybe. It must be that sometimes you have sung."