Phil and Irv were so curious about this matter that they asked everybody who came on board for an explanation. Finally, one young man, who had come to them with an inquiry as to the price at which they would be willing to sell out the boat and cargo at Vicksburg instead of going on to New Orleans, smiled gently and said, in reply to Phil’s questions:—
“Well, perhaps you don’t always recognize a reporter when you see him. Sometimes he may come to you to talk about quite other things than those that he really wants you to tell him about. Sometimes your talk will prove to be exactly what he wants to interest his readers with, and as a reporter usually has a pretty accurate memory, he is able to reproduce all that you say so nearly as you said it, that you can’t yourself afterward discover any flaw in his report. Sometimes, too, the reporter happens to be an artist sent to get a picture of you. He may have a kodak concealed under his vest, but usually that does not work. It is clumsy, you know, and generally unsatisfactory. It is a good deal easier for a newspaper artist who knows his business to talk to you about turnips, or Grover Cleveland, or Christian Science, or the tariff, or any of those things that people always talk about, and while you think him interested in the expression of your views, make a sketch of you on his thumb nail or on his cuff, which he can reproduce at the office for purposes of print. By the way, have you talked with any reporters since you arrived at Vicksburg?”
“No,” answered Phil; “none of them have come aboard.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Well, yes; I haven’t seen a single man from the press.”
“Well, if any of the papers should happen to ‘get on’ to the fact that you are here, and print something about it, I will send you copies in the morning.”
The next morning the promised copies came. One of them contained not only a very excellent portrait of Phil and a group picture of the crew, but also an almost exact reproduction of the conversation given above.
A new light dawned upon Phil’s mind.
“After all, that fellow was a reporter and a very clever one. He didn’t want to buy the boat or its cargo or anything else. But I wonder if he was an artist also. If not, who made those pictures?”
“Well,” said Irv, “you remember there was a young woman who came on board about the same time that he did. She was very much interested in Baby, but I noticed that she went all over the boat, and when you and that young fellow were talking, she sat down on the anchor, there, and seemed to be writing a letter on a pad. Just then, as I remember, we fellows were gathered around the new lantern you had just bought and examining it—and, by the way, here’s the lantern in the group picture.”