“I’m sorry too, son. I only hope you’ll find a way out of the difficulty. I’d help you if I could but there is no way I can grant you special privileges under the circumstances. Go to your class now and see if there isn’t some way you can work the situation out.”
But to Jeff there was no way out. He puzzled over it all day in his classes and all evening in the privacy of his room, for Wade had gone to a concert in town with several other fellows and Jeff was left alone with his unpleasant problem. He pondered over every phase of it until he became so discouraged and unhappy that he realized in desperation that he would have to quit Pennington forthwith, leave while yet he had a few dollars in his pockets with which to take care of himself while trying to find a position.
He listened. The big clock over in New City was booming the hour. He counted the strokes. It was nine o’clock. Why not leave now? Leave while Wade and the rest of the fellows were away. He knew that he did not have the courage to stay and bid them all good-by. He realized he would break down and probably make a chump of himself. Now was the time to go. And besides, he realized, now was the time when he could best get at Boss Russell, the city editor of the Daily Freeman, and perhaps secure the position he so much needed. He would go.
Hastily, almost eagerly, he packed up his few belongings and put them in his suitcase. Several little personal things he purposely overlooked, for he wanted to leave them for Wade to remember him by. In twenty minutes he had completed his task. Then he sat down at his desk in the corner and hastily scribbled Wade a note telling him of his plans. He read this over once, tucked it into an envelope, and dropped it on Wade’s bed. Then he picked up his suitcase, snapped out the light and stepped out into the broad hall and tiptoed his way to the big side door of the building, fearful lest he should disturb Dr. Hornby, the professor in charge of the house.
Out on the campus, he paused a moment in the shadow of the building and looked about. It was a hard pull to leave. It made his throat and eyes fill up once more, and it was only with the utmost self-control that he kept from breaking down as he finally stepped out among the tall elms on the campus and hurried toward the big gate and the street where a trolley to New City stood waiting at the end of the line.
CHAPTER V
THE CUB REPORTER
Fortune and Boss Russell favored Jeff Thatcher. When he appeared at half past ten that night in the Freeman office the city editor was in a quandary over the illness of two members of his staff and the resignation of a third, and when he peered over his glasses at Jeff Thatcher as he stood in front of his desk, he realized that here was part of the solution to the unpleasant situation of finding himself short-handed.
“You are young,” he told Jeff, “but your school stuff has been mighty good for a beginner, and I’ll take you on as a cub, if you want to take Mulvaney’s place. I’ve moved Mull up as special assignment man and you can run his obits and cover the hospitals for accident cases.” And so Jeff became a member of the Freeman staff with surprising quickness. Indeed, he started out forthwith to make what was to be his nightly rounds of undertaking establishments and hospitals even at that late hour, and at first he took a keen delight in the work.
There was no such thing as an assignment book in the office of the New City Daily Freeman. That method was far too slow for city editor, Boss Russell. He preferred to give out assignments over the city desk just as fast as they developed. He would hand them over with a few penciled notes, or a newspaper clipping or so, and some terse, snappy instructions that usually were enough to inspire any one of his staff of reporters to write the best story of his career. If he did not he stood a good chance of being fired. Boss Russell wanted the best that was in a man all the time. And he usually got it.