“Do you think Dummy—?” Joan began.
“Sure thing!” nodded the office boy. “They probably doped it up at the picnic. But I don’t know how we can prove that Dummy left that name off. It wasn’t on the copy, for Nixon compared that first thing.”
Joan’s head was swimming as she waited in the Journal office for Tim to return. When he came in, he was called to the editor’s desk right off, and every one heard Mr. Nixon confronting him with the mistake.
The office was silent, waiting for Tim’s reply.
“Guess I am guilty this time,” he acknowledged. “I realized afterwards that I had left some names off. I took the notes in a hurry, and filled one piece of paper, and took the last two or three names of the list on another piece, and then I forgot that second page.”
He went for his notes on the big hook by his desk. Every one at the Journal was required to keep all notes one week, for alibis. Every Saturday, the stuff on the hooks was thrown out. Tim thumbed through the papers on the hook—there were a great many, for this was Saturday, but the one he was looking for was near the top. He found the scrawled list and discovered that two names besides Mrs. McNulty’s were written on an extra bit of paper and had been left out of the printed list.
“Well, I guess it’s not serious, for no one complained but Mrs. McNulty. Give her a ring and make peace with her.” The editor looked relieved, then provoked the very next minute. “But, Martin, really, as a reporter, I must say you’re a better ball player. Why can’t you be accurate? You’ve shown you can write. Now, take that baseball write-up yesterday. That was dandy.”
“That was fun,” Tim showed his relief at being let off. “Writing this other junk isn’t.”
“That’s the regular cub assignment,” snapped the editor, turning back to his work. “Remember now, second warning, no more mistakes.”
“What’s all this about a mistake?” It was Uncle John hurrying out from his sanctum sanctorum.