"We shall go on to my uncle's in Cleveland right away, that is, if we have money enough to take us there."
"I suppose you wouldn't object to earning a little more money, then?" the stranger remarked, interrogatively.
"Nothing would suit Tug and me better," Aleck rejoined. "Do you know how we can do it? My name is Aleck Kincaid, and this promising youth here is Thucydides, otherwise 'Tug,' Montgomery. This is my sister Katy, and the youngster is my brother Jim."
"I am Harry Porter," the young man announced, shaking hands with them all, "and I am glad to get acquainted with you. Now, sit down a minute, and I'll make you a proposition. I live in New York city, and am on the staff of The Times, but am out here for a few days on a visit to my father. Your adventures would make a capital story—what we call a 'sensation'—in that newspaper. Do you think you could write it out in good shape?"
"I'm afraid not, sir," Aleck said. "I've never felt that I had any faculty in that direction—but I could make you an automatic brass valve if you wanted it!"
"Could you? That's more than I could do. Well, now, you see, you have the facts, but you must make use of my training to put them into readable shape, so that the story will be worth money to some newspaper. I can see how two or three very good articles, indeed, can be made, and what I propose is this: you come to a boarding-house, kept by a friend of mine, in Port Linton, and stay there as long as is necessary to tell me everything. Then I can write it all into a connected story, and we'll divide the profits."
"But supposing The Times shouldn't want to print it?"
"I'll take care of that," Mr. Porter replied.
"But we would have to wait a good while to get the money back, wouldn't we?" Aleck asked. "And we want it now worse than we ever shall again, probably."
"Ye—es, that's a difficulty," Mr. Porter admitted, slowly. Then he thought over it a minute or two in silence. "I'll tell you what I'll do," he said at last, "and I think I shall be safe. I estimate that you can give me facts enough for ten or twelve columns—say ten; and that for this 'special and exclusive' they will pay me twenty dollars, or more, a column. So if you are willing to take one hundred dollars for your information, I'll run the risk of getting that back and another hundred on top of it for the labor of writing."