nted
reluctantly. He thought Maxwell was better for better things; he knew he
was a ravenous reader of philosophy and sociology, and he had been early
in the secret of his being a poet; it had since become an open secret
among his fellow-reporters, for which he suffered both honor and
dishonor.

"I shouldn't think you'd like to do it, Maxwell," said Ricker, kindly.
"It isn't in your line, is it? Better give it to some of the other
fellows."

"It's more in my line than you suppose, Mr. Ricker," said the young
fellow. "It's a subject I've looked up a great deal lately. I once
thought"--he looked down bashfully--"of trying to write a play about a
defaulter, and I got together a good many facts about defalcation.
You've no idea how common it is; it's about the commonest fact of our
civilization."

"Ah! Is that so?" asked Ricker with ironical deference to the bold
generalizer. "Who else is 'onto' this thing?"

"Pinney, of the _Events_."

"Well, he's a dangerous rival, in some ways," said Ricker. "When it
comes to slush and a whitewash brush, I don't think you're a match for
him. But perhaps you don't intend to choose the same weapons." Ricker
pulled down the green-lined pasteboard peak that he wore over his
forehead by gaslight, and hitched his chair round to his desk again, and
Maxwell knew that he was authorized to do the work.

He got no word from the detective, who had given him a hint of the
affair, to go ahead the night after his return from Hatboro', as he had
expected, but he knew that the fact could not be kept back, and he
worked as hard at his report as Pinney and Pinney's wife had worked at
theirs. He waited till the next morning to begin, however, for he was
too fagged after he came home from the Hilarys'; he rose early and got
himself a cup of tea over the gas-burner; before the house was awake he
was well on in his report. By nightfall he had finished it, and then he
carried it to Ricker. The editor had not gone to dinner yet, and he gave
Maxwell's work the critical censure of a hungry man. It was in two
separate parts: one, a careful and lucid statement of all the facts
which had come to Maxwell's knowledge, in his quality of reporter, set
down without sensation, and in that self-respectful decency of tone
which the _Abstract_ affected; the other, an editorial comment upon the
facts. Ricker read the first through without saying anything; when he
saw what the second was, he pushed up his green-lined pe