“Not yet. I’ve thought maybe I might get a chance sometime as a sort of local correspondent around here,” was the diffident reply.
Gardner repressed a grin. Manzanita would hardly qualify as a news center. Diplomacy prompted him to state vaguely that there was always a chance for good stuff locally.
“On a big story like this,” he added, “of course there’d be nothing doing except for the special man sent out to cover it.”
“No. Well, I didn’t write my—what I wrote, with any idea of getting it printed.”
The newspaper man sighed wearily, sighed like a child and lied like a man of duty. “I’d like to see it.”
Without a trace of hesitation or self-consciousness Banneker said, “All right,” and, taking his composition from its docket, motioned the other to the light. Mr. Gardner finished and turned the first sheet before making any observation. Then he bent a queer look upon Banneker and grunted:
“What do you call this stuff, anyway?”
“Just putting down what I saw.”
Gardner read on. “What about this, about a Pullman sleeper ‘elegant as a hotel bar and rigid as a church pew’? Where do you get that?”
Banneker looked startled. “I don’t know. It just struck me that is the way a Pullman is.”