“I guess that won’t make much difference,” reflected Joan, as she carried the paper back to the editorial office to show to Tim.
“You never can tell,” grinned Chub, as he trotted along beside her, his rubber sneakers slipping over the oil spots on the cement floor. He had not been an office boy in a newspaper office for two summers for nothing. He knew any mistake was apt to be serious. “That’s what I was telling you about, Jo—mistakes.” But Joan hardly heard him.
Tim was furious when he saw the story.
Miss Betty, busy already writing up a lengthy account of a wedding that would take place to-morrow, for the next day’s paper, paused in the middle of her description of the bridal bouquet to console the cub reporter.
“Mistakes do happen, Tim,” she laughed. “Think of the day I wrote up a meeting of the Mission Band and said that the members spent the afternoon in ‘shade and conversation,’ only to have it come out as ‘they spent the afternoon in shady conversation’!”
But Tim refused to be cheered, and Joan began to realize that the mistake was serious, for Mr. Nixon, the editor, had a set look on his face, too.
“Does it really make so much difference?” she asked.
“Does it?” Tim glared at her, his eyes darker than ever. “With Albert Johnson one of the most influential men in town?”
Then Joan understood. It was the name and address of a real resident of Plainfield that had been printed, and that was bad. The man wouldn’t relish reading in the paper that he had deserted his children when he hadn’t at all.
“I can kiss my job good-by,” groaned Tim. “Why weren’t you careful?”