just couldn't
let him miss the chance--he might never have another. And it means so
much to us and Mother."

"Are you a member of the _Chronicle_ staff yourself?" inquired Mr.
Reefer with a shade more geniality in his tone.

"Oh, no! I've nothing to do with it, so you won't mind my being
inexperienced, will you? I don't know just what I should ask you, so
won't you please just tell me everything about the bill, and Mr.
Harmer can cut out what doesn't matter?"

Mr. Reefer looked at Patty for a few moments with a face about as
expressive as a graven image. Perhaps he was thinking about the bill,
and perhaps he was thinking what a bright, vivid, plucky little girl
this was with her waiting pencil and her air that strove to be
businesslike, and only succeeded in being eager and hopeful and
anxious.

"I'm not used to being interviewed myself," he said slowly, "so I
don't know very much about it. We're both green hands together, I
imagine. But I'd like to help you out, so I don't mind telling you
what I think about this bill, and its bearing on certain important
interests."

Mr. Reefer proceeded to tell her, and Patty's pencil flew as she
scribbled down his terse, pithy sentences. She found herself asking
questions too, and enjoying it. For the first time, Patty thought she
might rather like politics if she understood them--and they did not
seem so hard to understand when a man like Mr. Reefer explained them.
For half an hour he talked to her, and at the end of that time Patty
was in full possession of his opinion on the famous railroad bill in
all its aspects.

"There now, I'm talked out," said Mr. Reefer. "You can tell your news
editor that you know as much about the railroad bill as Andrew Reefer
knows. I hope you'll succeed in pleasing him, and that your brother
will get the position he wants. But he shouldn't have missed that
train. You tell him that. Boys with important things to do mustn't
miss trains. Perhaps it's just as well he did in this case though,
but tell him not to let it happen again."

Patty went straight home, wrote up her interview in ship-shape form,
and took it down to the _Chronicle_ office. There she found Mr.
Harmer, scowling blackly. The little news editor looked to be in a
rather bad temper, but he nodded not unkindly to Patty. Mr. Harmer
knew the Baxters well and liked them, although he would have
sacrificed them all without a qualm for a "scoop."

"Good evening, Patty. Take a chair. T