"You are the greatest inventor in the world," exclaimed a newspaper man to Alexander Graham Bell.
"Oh, no, my friend, I'm not," said Professor Bell. "I've never been a reporter."
Not long ago a city editor in Ottumwa, Iowa, was told over the telephone that a prominent citizen had just died suddenly. He called a reporter and told him to rush out and get the "story." Twenty minutes later the reporter returned, sat down at his desk, and began to rattle off copy on his typewriter.
"Well, what about it?" asked the city editor.
"Oh, nothing much," replied the reporter, without looking up. "He was walking along the street when he suddenly clasped his hands to his heart and said, 'I'm going to die!' Then he leaned up against a fence and made good."
Enraged over something the local newspaper had printed about him, a subscriber burst into the editor's office in search of the responsible reporter. "Who are you?" he demanded, glaring at the editor, who was also the main stockholder.
"I'm the newspaper," was the calm reply.
"And who are you?" he next inquired, turning his resentful gaze on the chocolate-colored office-devil clearing out the waste basket.