One of the usual reporters being ill, the news editor had asked her if she would like to take his place, and she had eagerly accepted the chance. It meant a day in the country, travelling by special train, and the writing of the report did not worry her at all, as she had already served her apprenticeship to journalism, and knew how to seize on the most interesting points and condense them into a small space.
She had a genius for making friends also, and after an excellent champagne lunch, and a cup of tea captured for her by a pleasant-faced man whom she afterwards discovered to be the Earl of Roxley, she motored back to the railway station with a well-known aeronaut, who promised to take her for a “fly” some day. They travelled up to town in the same compartment, and as Hal had to have her article ready for press when she reached the office, it was necessary to write it in the train.
The “flying man” wished to turn his hand to journalism too, and attempted to help her, without much success, though with a good deal of entertainment for himself. He was specially amused at her determination to lay considerable stress on the fact that one of the horses in the royal carriage fell down between the station and the park.
“What’s the good of putting that in?” he argued; “it is of no importance.”
“Why, it’s almost the most important thing of all,” she declared. “You evidently don’t know much about journalism. The Public will not be half as interested in the King’s speech as in the information that one of the horses fell down, and that the King then put his hands on the Queen’s, and told her not to be frightened.”
“But he didn’t; and the horse only slipped.”
“But you’re too dense!” she cried, “and, anyhow, you can’t be certain that he didn’t. It’s what he ought to have done, and the British Public will be awfully pleased to know that he did. They’ll be frightfully interested in the horse falling down, too. I suppose you would leave it out, and give dates of the building of the edifice, and the different styles of architecture, and the names of illustrious people connected with it. As if any one wanted to know that! The horse will make far better reading, though I daresay I ought to work in a few costs of things. The B.P. loves to know what a thing costs.”
“Well, why not value the horse, as you think so much of it? or say that it snapped a trace in half which cost two guineas, and was bought in Bond Street?”
They both laughed, and then Hal said seriously:
“I think I’ll make it kick over the centre pole, only then perhaps some of the other reporters will catch it for not having seen the kick also. I once wrote an account of a garden party, and left out that the horses of the Prime Minister’s carriage shied and swerved, and one wheel caught against the gate-post. As a matter of fact, it did not do much more than graze it, but some journalist wrote a thrilling account of how the carriage nearly turned over; and I’ve never forgotten the chief’s face when he asked me why I hadn’t mentioned the accident to the Prime Minister’s carriage. I said there wasn’t an accident, and he snapped: ‘Well you’d better have turned them all in a heap in the road than left it out altogether!’