“But maybe they’ll stop us,” objected Larry.
“You leave that to me,” spoke Mr. Newton. “I’ll make it all right if anyone objects.”
With Larry following, he started upstairs, where, as one of the detectives had informed him, the thieves had made an entrance. As they were going up they were met by a well-dressed man.
“Here! Where are you going?” he asked.
“I’m a reporter from the Leader,” said Mr. Newton. “I want to get a correct account of this robbery.”
“We don’t want any reporters in here,” said the man sharply. “We don’t want this thing in the papers at all. You have no right in here. I order you out!”
Larry was beginning to get frightened. He had yet to see how a seasoned reporter meets a rebuff of this kind.
“I’m very sorry,” began Mr. Newton in a smooth tone. “I’m sure the Leader doesn’t want to annoy anyone. We are just as sorry as you are about this robbery, but we are only doing you a service.”
“How doing us a service?” replied the man. “If you call blazing a lot of untruths about the matter all over, why I suppose it is.”
“Pardon me,” interposed Mr. Newton, “but the Leader is not a yellow journal. It does not publish fakes. It always tries to get at the truth. Sometimes, as in a case of this sort, where we are refused information, we have to get it from the next best source. Sometimes, I admit, we may be given the wrong information.