Sinking down on the davenport, Penny scanned the front page. Immediately her attention was drawn to a brief item which appeared in an inconspicuous bottom corner.
“Here’s something!” she exclaimed. “Why, how strange!”
“What is, Penny?”
“It says in this story that a big rock has been found on the farm of Carl Gleason! The stone bears writing thought to be of Elizabethan origin!”
“Let me see that paper,” Mr. Parker said, striding across the room. “I didn’t know any such story was used.”
With obvious displeasure, the editor read the brief item which Penny indicated. Only twenty lines in length, it stated that a stone bearing both Elizabethan and Indian carving had been found on the nearby farm.
“I don’t know how this item got past City Editor DeWitt,” Mr. Parker declared. “It has all the earmarks of a hoax! You didn’t by chance write it, Penny?”
“I certainly did not.”
“It reads a little like a Jerry Livingston story,” Mr. Parker said, glancing at the item a second time.
Going to a telephone he called first the Star office and then the home of the reporter, Jerry Livingston. After talking with the young man several minutes, he finally hung up the receiver.