"By the way, Gallant, has she told you we are engaged to be married?"
John hesitated and chose to keep the confidence she had placed in him.
"No," he said. "You ARE to be congratulated." He had a secret satisfaction in stressing the "are."
Gibson lighted his cigarette.
"I just thought I'd tell you," he said and John thought—or was it his imagination?—that Gibson's set smile flattened a little at the corners.
CHAPTER XIV
Under Brennan's patient tutelage John progressed rapidly, learning thoroughly the rudiments of newspaper reporting in its two branches, news gathering and writing. P. Q. occasionally gave advice which John knew came from a man who took a secret pride in supervising the remarkable metamorphosis of a "cub" into a well trained reporter. It was the gossip of newspaper workers that P. Q. excelled in the training of his reporters whom he handled with the tact of a psychologist and the care of a manager of a baseball team for his players. Nothing gave him more pleasure than to develop a "cub" into a star and there were dozens of star men throughout the country whom he brought to the top and who still thought him the "greatest of them all."
Brennan was one of the star men who broke into newspaper work under P. Q. Between P. Q. and his star reporter there was a peculiar relationship which John studied with interest. When Brennan performed some especially clever piece of work the city editor treated him as though it was unnecessary for him to give any praise or commendation. When Brennan disappointed him, which was seldom, P. Q. would berate him with the same caustic fervor that lashed a stupid, thick-headed reporter to a point of self-abnegation that gave him thoughts of suicide as the only way out of his misery.