"Why, it's great," said Joe. "Felix Conway is right in with those people and he could get you on one of the papers. I know boys that started as messengers and afterwards became reporters."
Barry shook his head decidedly.
"I have no intention of resigning my position as page, and I don't think that Mr. Carlton desires it either."
"Very well," was the reply, with a resigned air. "If your mind's settled, I'm not going to try to change it."
"It's settled," said Barry.
"By the way," said Joe, changing the subject, "did you know that I had a typewriter?"
"No, I did not."
"Well, if you'll come up to my room, I'll show it to you. It's a second-hand affair. I bought it for fifteen dollars, but it has been fixed up so that it is almost as good as new. I have been learning to work it, and I think it might come in useful some day."
Barry was interested at once, and after supper that night he went up to Joe's room and examined the wonderful purchase of the page boy. Joe had not misrepresented the case at all. The machine was in fairly good repair. Joe sat down for the edification of his friend and wrote him a letter. It was a slow and somewhat painful process. He used one finger like a boarding-school miss who had not yet received her first lesson on the piano. Sometimes he struck a comma for a period, and occasionally he used a dash instead of an interrogation point, and when the letter was finished an unbiased observer would have immediately ranked it among the curiosities of literature. But it served its purpose, for it awoke a half-slumbering desire that Barry had in his mind ever since he came to Washington.