The other note was in a strange handwriting, and ran as follows:
My Dear Proxy:
If you will call some time to-day during business hours at room Q, Mills Building, and inquire for Mr. Leigh, he will give you a bit of news that you may consider worthy of publication in the Phonograph.
Your Friend of the Oxygen.
“Here’s a mystery,” thought Myles; “I wonder what it means. I guess I’ll run down there if I have a chance; there may be something in it.”
Just then a pleasant-faced young man, who had been chatting with a group of reporters, and whom Myles had noticed as one that everybody in the office seemed glad of a chance to talk with, stepped up to him and held out his hand, saying:
“You are the new reporter, I believe, and your name is Manning. Mine is Rolfe, and I am glad to welcome to the office a fellow who can hold his own in a street row as pluckily as you did yesterday.”
“I am much obliged,” said Myles, taking the other’s offered hand, “and very glad indeed to make your acquaintance, Mr. Rolfe, for it does seem rather lonely here when you don’t know anybody. But how did you hear any thing about yesterday?”
“Why, there is a full account of your little scrimmage in one of the Brooklyn papers of last evening, though of course your name isn’t mentioned. You are only spoken of as a New York reporter; but Billings told us who it was. Yesterday was your first day, was it not?”