three average reporters, and they are all pretty good at it. He had the power of making anybody talk. The busiest bank presidents and the crustiest lawyers opened their mouths for him quite as readily as East Side saloon-keepers. If there was news to be had Woods could dig it out; and after he got it he knew how to handle it. These two qualities don't always go together.
Woods had been taken on the staff of The Day as a cub reporter, younger, and even more ignorant of the meaning of the word "news" than most cub reporters. Since then he had learned a good deal, but had never seen fit to leave off reporting for a place at the copy-reading desk, or even to become assistant city editor, because reporting was not only more pleasurable but decidedly more profitable. He led as unmonotonous a life as anyone in town, and his space bills averaged nearly three times as much as an ordinary copy-reader's salary and fully twice that of the assistant city editor—not to speak of his fame as the star reporter of The Day.
4
