“And as to what became of little Charley Ross?”
“That,” said the old gentleman, “is something the national committee would prefer to remain, for the present, a secret.”
Felix was beaten.
“Thank you,” he said, and went away.
“Got anything?” the city editor asked, when Felix came up to his desk to report.
“Not a thing.” Felix said.
The city editor grunted, reached out for a typewritten sheet on the hook, and seemed to dismiss the matter from his mind.
Felix went back to his desk and sat there idly. He took out Rose-Ann’s little book from his pocket, and read in it. And then suddenly he put a sheet of paper in his machine and commenced to write.
Confound it, if what Rose-Ann said about the people of Chicago was so, they would enjoy the true story of that interview. It was funny. Funny just because it was silly. But it was so preposterously the opposite of what he had been sent to find out—it seemed a deliberate mockery of the traditional and legitimate curiosity of the public. If he ventured to show it to the city editor, it would probably be his last assignment.
Recklessly, he wrote it.