Joan told her that a scoop was the Star’s having a story that the Journal should have had and did not. She explained it absent-mindedly. She was busy thinking what a fine story this bit of semi-civic news would be for Tim. So appropriate, too, for he could bring in Mr. Hutton’s name. Yes, Tim would be glad. The paper wasn’t doing so well lately, he had confided to her. Uncle John was worrying about how to boost the circulation. Maybe this would help.
CHAPTER XII
RICH BOY, POOR BOY
The Journal started a contest to boost circulation. The boy readers were asked to write in on the subject of their favorite baseball player. The scheme worked, too, for the lists showed many new subscribers since the boys had been sending in their letters. Every day now, Tim was writing a story about how the letters were coming in and which player was leading in popularity for that day—a funny little column, so full of wit and real sport news that even Mr. Nixon noticed it.
“We’ll make a regular columnist out of you, Martin,” he teased. “That and sports seem to be your long suits. Guess you like ’em better than straight news stuff. But stick at the cub job. You have lots to learn.” He glanced at Tim’s copy in his hand. “Don’t say an accident took place; weddings take place, accidents occur. And remember Journal style—‘street’ gets lower case, ‘Avenue,’ upper case.”
Mr. Nixon couldn’t give a real compliment to save his soul, Joan thought, but Tim was grinning understandingly, and promised to remember about street and Avenue. That meant that Avenue was spelled with a capital, while street was not. Purely Journal style.
From the very first day of the contest they were swamped with letters. Miss Betty and Mack took turns reading them, but soon they were too busy to get them read every day, and the letters began to pile up.
“Shut your eyes and pick one for the prize,” suggested Mack. That was like him.
“That wouldn’t be fair,” objected Miss Betty.
She went to Editor Nixon about it. He glanced around the office, a worried pucker between his bushy brows. His eyes lighted upon Joan, who was spending most of her time in the Journal office these days, now that Tommy was safely off her hands. (She had to watch for new developments on the Dummy mystery.) Burke had hunted through the envelopes for hers one pay day! The editor was now so accustomed to seeing her around that now he practically gave her an assignment.
“Look here,” he waved his fat, blue pencil toward her. “Why can’t you and the office pest read over these baseball fan letters?” He meant Chub.