“It is good to hear your voice again, my boy, and a great relief to hear you speak so cheerfully of your new business. I was afraid you had gone into it in a fit of desperation, and not from choice.”
“Well, to tell the truth, I did go into it in somewhat that way, father, but now I mean to stay in it from a real liking for it, and because I can already see that it may lead to many much better things. But you are not ashamed to have me a reporter, as mother seems to be, are you, sir?”
“Not a bit of it, my son; I am not ashamed to have you in any honest business; only reporters always seemed to me an annoying and somewhat mischievous set of fellows.”
Here Mrs. Manning broke in with:
“Oh, Myles, how can you say that I could ever be ashamed of any thing you did? You know I couldn’t; but then some things are so different from others.”
“So they are, mother,” replied Myles, soberly; “you never said a truer thing in your life.” Then, turning again to his father, he added: “That’s just it, sir. You never knew much about reporters, any more than the rest of us did. I am beginning to learn something about them, though, and to see them as they really are, and I shall try to open the family eyes to look at them as I do. Oh, father, I forgot! I didn’t mean to use those words. We really do mean to open your eyes, though, some time, so that you will see reporters as well as all the other good fellows who come in your way; see if we don’t. But where is Kate?”
“Getting your supper ready,” replied Mrs. Manning.
“Good for her! She appreciates the needs of a fellow who has been mealing in restaurants and at lunch-counters for a week.”
Just then Kate Manning entered the room with a warm welcome for her brother and the announcement that his supper waited.