NEWSPAPERS
APPLICANT—"I'm ready to begin at the bottom, sir."
NEWSPAPER PROPRIETOR—"Well, what's your idea?"
"To start first with the leading editorials and gradually work myself up to the sporting page."
"Never state as a fact anything you are not certain about," the great editor warned the new reporter, "or you will get us into libel suits. In such cases use the words, 'alleged,' 'claimed,' 'reputed,' 'rumored,' and so on."
And then this paragraph appeared in the society notes of the paper:
"It is rumored that a card party was given yesterday by a number of reputed ladies. Mrs. Smith, gossip says, was hostess. It is alleged that the guests with the exception of Mrs. Bellinger, who says she hails from Leavitt's Junction, were all from here. Mrs. Smith claims to be the wife of Archibald Smith, the so-called 'Honest Man' trading on Key Street."
And when the editor had read the report a whirling mass claiming to be the reporter was projected through the window and struck the street with a dull thud.