ng, there are two kinds of reporters. One is the kind
with a nose for news and without any particular ability to write. The
other is the kind that can write without being able to get the news for
themselves. When you get the two in one, a man who can write and get the
news himself, you've got a star, but they are few and far between.

"P. Q. says once in a while that I can write and I think I'm a demon
news-getter and there you are--that's me.

"Let me tell you how it is about writing a story. Suppose Mary Jones,
aged 18, of 1559 Fifty-Ump street, shop girl, kills herself and leaves a
note saying she did it because the man she loved threw her over. It's no
story to write it that 'Mary Jones, 18 years old, a shop girl, who
resided at 1559 Fifty-Ump street, ended her life today because of an
unhappy affair with an unnamed man.'

"Plain 'Mary Jones' isn't the story. Probably only fifty people in the
city know her. What do the others care? Not much. This is your
story--'An 18-year-old girl who dreamed of a Prince Charming to come and
carry her away from a monotonous life behind a store counter and a
dreary third-floor-back room, took her life in Los Angeles today.'

"Get the idea? 'Mary Jones' isn't the story. What she did, how she
lived, what made her do it, that's what the story is. That brings a
throb of sympathy, a tear perhaps, for her from someone who never heard
of her and it helps to make better folks and a better world."

Brennan's way of talking entranced John. He realized there was more in
reporting than he had ever imagined. P. Q. seemed to have forgotten him
completely during the next few days. In the mornings he was given a few
short clippings to rewrite and that was all.

"Don't worry, he's got an eye on you," Brennan told him. "And let me
tell you something. Perhaps you've read stories about the cub reporter
scooping the town, landing the big exclusive story and all that. Well,
that's bunk. No cub reporter ever did it, not unless he was working
against a bunch of other cubs. Why, he's lucky if he knows what to do
with a big story when he's got one, let alone put it over on the star
men of the other sheets."

A really first-class newspaper man, Brennan told him, was born and not
made.

"You can make them up to a certain point, but no further," he said. "And
take it from me, the ones that are born newspaper men aren't born every
minute for Mr. Barnum or anyone else to get."

It was at noon of the thi