“Heavens and earth and the lower regions! I’m here on my vacation. I’m not going to jump into work for all the papers in New York. Why couldn’t those fools of Fenians stay at home? The idiots don’t know when they’re well off. The Fenians be hanged!”
“Guess that’s what they will be,” said the telegraph boy. “Any answer, sir?”
“No. Tell ‘em you couldn’t find me.”
“Don’t expect the boy to tell a lie,” said the professor, speaking for the first time.
“Oh, I don’t mind a lie!” exclaimed the boy, “but not that one. No, sir. I’ve had too much trouble finding you. I’m not going to pretend I’m no good. I started out for to find you, and I have. But I’ll tell any other lie you like, Mr. Yates, if it will oblige you.”
Yates recognized in the boy the same emulous desire to outstrip his fellows that had influenced himself when he was a young reporter, and he at once admitted the injustice of attempting to deprive him of the fruits of his enterprise.
“No,” he said, “that won’t do. No; you have found me, and you’re a young fellow who will be president of the telegraph company some day, or perhaps hold the less important office of the United States presidency. Who knows? Have you a telegraph blank?”
“Of course,” said the boy, fishing out a bundle from the leathern wallet by his side. Yates took the paper, and flung himself down under the tree.
“Here’s a pencil,” said the messenger.
“A newspaper man is never without a pencil, thank you,” replied Yates, taking one out of his inside pocket. “Now, Renmark, I’m not going to tell a lie on this occasion,” he continued.