“You could take care of that matter easily enough.”
“If they took my instructions seriously, you might not like it,” the newspaper owner warned. “A reporter learns hard and bitter lessons. Mr. DeWitt, for instance, is a fine editor—our best, but he has a temper and—”
The frosted glass door swung open and an elderly, slightly bald man in shirt sleeves slouched in. Seeing Penny, he would have retreated, had not Mr. Parker called him back.
“What’s on your mind, DeWitt?”
“Trouble,” growled the editor. “That no-good, addle-brained boy we hired as night police reporter, just blew up! Said it was too confining to sit in a police station all night waiting for something to happen! So he gets himself a job in a canning factory! Now we’re another employee short.”
“Dad, let me take over the night police job!” Penny pleaded.
Both her father and Mr. DeWitt smiled as if suffering from intense pain. “Penny,” Mr. Parker explained gently. “Night police work isn’t suitable for a girl. Furthermore, it is one of the most undesirable jobs on a paper.”
“But I want to work somewhere, and you’re so stubborn!”
Mr. DeWitt studied Penny with concentrated interest. Hope flickered in his eyes. Turning abruptly to Mr. Parker he asked: “Why not, Chief? We could use her on the desk for rewrite. We’re mighty hard up, and that’s a fact.”
“What about the personnel problem?” Mr. Parker frowned. “How would the staff take it?”