“I must have walked a little too far, for, the first thing I knew, I had stepped over the edge of the platform, and the next thing I knew I was falling. I woke up in the river, and struck out. That’s about all.”
“Lucky for you the searchlight was working,” remarked one of the man’s friends, “or you might have been on the bottom of the river by now.”
“Well, you see,” said the man, with a smile, as he wiped the water from his eyes. “I ate so many clams, lobsters, and crabs to-day that when I got down there the river thought I was a sort of a fish, and so it didn’t drown me.”
Larry made inquiry, and found out the man’s name. He made notes of the occurrence, and, the next morning, on reaching the office, wrote up a lively story of the happening.
He said nothing to Mr. Emberg about being the only reporter on the boat when the thing happened. But that afternoon, when all the other papers came out, and, like the morning issues, had no account of the rescue of the man, who was a prominent politician, the city editor said:
“I hope you weren’t ‘faking’ that story, Larry?” and Mr. Emberg looked serious, for he did not want any of the reporters to “fake,” or write untrue accounts of matters.
“No, sir, it actually happened,” said Larry, and he related how he came to be the only newspaper reporter at the scene. A little later Mr. Newton came in.
“Say,” he asked, “did we have a story of a man falling overboard on that Democratic outing? I just heard of it on the street as I was coming in.”
He had not been in that morning, being out of town on a story.
“Oh, Larry was on hand as usual,” replied the city editor, for by this time he was convinced that Larry’s account was true. “He has given us another beat.”