ad to get it. It would be better than
filling up with poetry, the way they often do. By the way, I did cut out
a poem of the reporter's. I forgot all about that. Wonder where it is,"
and he began searching in his pockets.

"That's what made him angry," cried Catherine. "Anybody would be angry
at that. Was it a very bad poem?"

"I can't remember much of it. Only it had a refrain every two inches of
'My woe! My woe!'

'I cannot tell the world my woe,'

was the way it began, and then he went straight ahead to try to do that
very thing. Here! I've got a scrap of it.

'Things are seldom what they seem,
Nor is Life what its livers dream,
My woe, my woe!'"

The audience shouted with laughter, but Catherine looked sympathetic.

"Poor boy!" she said. "He probably loved his quotations and his poetry,
and had looked forward to Mr. Morse's being away to have a beautiful
time with the paper. I don't blame him for resigning and eating his
heart out. Not a poem of mine will I send you, Mr. Penfield, or any of
your hard-hearted staff. I'll confine myself to finding out what's
happening in Winsted, and leave the head-lines to your own inventive
genius."

Two days later, the editorial staff of the Courier had an impromptu
meeting in the library. Max had come in to ask Algernon for notes, and
Catherine and Hannah were waiting for Frieda and Alice to join them to
go to a tea at Dot's.

"We've called on the biggest gossips we could find," called Hannah
cheerfully, as Max came in, "and I've got at least ten items." She
showed a note-book which slipped inside her card-case.

"She was dreadful!" said Catherine. "She would stop and make notes
before we had got a block away from the house, for fear she would
forget, and asked questions that made me hold my breath."

"Well," Hannah defended herself. "I wanted details. I don't want just
little bare sentences. And Catherine was just as bad. She took such an
interest in the new people who had moved in next door to the
Galleghers', that I know the Gallegher girls were almost scandalized."

Max ran his eye over Hannah's list of news items approvingly. "That's a
fine start. Can't you do some more calls?"

Catherine shook her head. "No, we don't know any more of the very
gossippy kind, but we are going to a tea at Dot's, and we'll make a
society note of that. How are the editorials coming?"

Max made a wry face. "I declare, I'm pretty nearly stumped. At college
there a