"Our correspondent in Chicago says you left there last evening with a carload of new and powerful explosives."
"Was such a story printed this morning?" asked Ned, eyeing the reporter closely.
"I think not," said the reporter, "but we are an afternoon paper, you know. We have a report that you are on your way to Mare Island, California, and that you have a carload of explosives for the navy."
"Was such a story printed this morning?" repeated Ned, smiling again.
"No, it wasn't. But it will be this afternoon," answered the young man impatiently.
"If such a report had been known in Chicago last night," replied Ned sharply, "it would have been in every newspaper in that city and this city this morning. No correspondent sent you such a story. You are a poor guesser."
The reporter was at least four years older than Ned and Alan. Therefore, he gave a little start of surprise. He had been trapped in a trick that he had often worked successfully on many an older person. For Bob Russell, easily the brightest and quickest-witted reporter in his city, thus to be turned down by two "kids" would never do. Without wasting time to deny Ned's charge, he tried a belligerent role.
"Do you deny you have newly invented ammunition in that car?" he exclaimed brusquely.
"I deny nothing and refuse to be put in the attitude of doing so," calmly answered Ned. "Although it happens you are wrong again."
The young man laughed and again changed his tactics.