Larry Dexter, Reporter; Or, Strange Adventures in a Great City

by Howard Roger Garis

“Shall I get his picture?” asked Larry Dexter, as he came forward to go out on the assignment.

“No, we haven’t time to make it to-day. Just get a brief sketch of his life. Hurry back.”

Larry got his hat from the coat room, and left the office. He was the newest reporter on the Leader. The other reporters spoke of him as the “cub,” not meaning anything disrespectful, but only to indicate that he was the “freshman,” the apprentice, or whatever one considers the beginner in any line of work. Larry was a sort of fledgling at the business, though he had been on the Leader a number of months.

He began as a copy boy, just like one of the lads whom Mr. Emberg had cautioned about being in a hurry. Larry, with his mother, his sisters, Lucy, aged thirteen, and Mary, aged five, and his brother, James, lived in a fairly good tenement in New York City. They had come there from the village of Campton, New York, where Larry’s father, who had been dead a few years, once owned a fine farm. But reverses had overtaken the family, and some time after Mr. Dexter’s death the place was sold at auction.

When the place had been disposed of, Mrs. Dexter desired to come to New York to live with her sister, Mrs. Edward Ralston. But, as related in the first volume of this series, entitled, “From Office Boy to Reporter; or, The First Step in Journalism,” when Mrs. Dexter, with Larry and the other children, reached the big city, they found that Mrs. Ralston’s husband had been killed a few days before in an accident. Mrs. Ralston, writing a hasty letter to her sister, had gone to live with other relatives in a distant state.

But Mrs. Dexter did not receive this letter on time, in consequence of having hastily undertaken the journey from Campton, and so did not hear of her sister’s loss until she reached the house where Mrs. Ralston had lived. The travelers made the best of it, however, and were cared for by kind neighbors.

Larry soon secured work as an office, or copy, boy on the Leader, through one day being able to help Harvey Newton, one of the best reporters on the paper, at an exciting fire.

In those days Larry had trouble with Peter Manton, a rival copy boy, and he was kidnapped by some electric cab strikers who thought he was a reporter they wanted to pay off an old score on. The lad and Mr. Newton were sent to report a big flood in another part of the state, where the big dam broke, and where many persons were in danger of being drowned.

While in the flooded district Larry met his old enemy, Peter, and there was a race between them to see who would get some copy, telling of the flood, to the telegraph office first. Larry won, and for this good work was promoted from an office boy to be a regular reporter. In the course of his duties as a copy boy he once saved a valuable watch from being stolen by pickpockets from a celebrated doctor, and the physician, in his gratitude, operated on Larry’s sister Lucy, who suffered from a bad spinal disease, and cured her.

This made the family feel much happier, as now Lucy could go about like other girls, and did not have to spend many hours in a big chair. Larry’s advancement also brought him a larger salary, so there was no further need for Mrs. Dexter to take in sewing. They were able also to move to a better apartment, though not far from where they had first settled.