The Old Reporter
a statement, replied "That he had nothing to say." … But he did not know how much of a sacrifice that lie meant to the impudent young reporter, nor the kind of a sacrifice, obviously, for later in the day a check came from the white-mustached lawyer with a note, which Billy, angrily ringing for a messenger, did not read through. It was just as well this did not come before the paper went to press.
"I suppose it serves me right," said the reporter when he had cooled down, "for letting my personal feelings come into my business relations. This lawyer never does; therefore he could not understand it in anyone else."
That was not the sort of experience to curb the news instinct. Very few of the reporter's experiences were.
And as he became an older and better reporter he naturally was less given to thinking of how the other fellow felt about it. That was not the reporter's job; it was to get the news, and he generally got it when once he saw his "story in it."
The men often said that the city editor al-
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