On a mid-April day of 1915 there appeared upon an inner page of The Guardian, an item of such overwhelming importance, that when the editor and owner read it, all other news of the day receded and blurred into a dull, colorless mist of insignificance. The article stated briefly that Miss Marcia Ames, cousin of Miss Letitia Pritchard, of 11 Montgomery Street, who was well known to Fenchester society, not only for her charm and beauty, but also as being the only lady intercollegiate golf-player in the country, had left Berne, whither she had gone after the breaking-out of the war, and was visiting friends in Copenhagen. Her many and admiring friends would be glad to learn, etc., etc., in the best society-reportorial formula. After thoroughly absorbing that paragraph into his inmost being, Jeremy sent for Buddy Higman, who had now taken on the additional duty of marking each day’s paper, from the assignment book, article by article, with the name of the writer of each.
“Buddy,” said the editor, “whose is the Ames story?”
This being an official query, Buddy made pretense of consulting his marked file. “Higman, sir.”
“Oh! You wrote it? Did you have a letter?”
“Yes, sir. But I did n’t write it from that. I would n’t make a story out of a letter from Her. That’s personal,” said Buddy, proud in his rigid sense of ethics.
“Then where did you get it?”
“I figured that like as not Miss Pritchard would get one by the same mail. So I went an’ ast her.”
“And she had?”
“Yes, sir. I told her I was there for The Guardian an’ was there anything she could give out. An’ she gimme the story.”
“Buddy, if you don’t look out you’re going to be a real newspaper man one of these days!”