He was a fat little man; the top of his head being very bald and shiny with a fringe of black hair all around it and two big tufts at his ears, his eyebrows being thick and s.h.a.ggy and standing straight out from twin caverns.

He held his shoulders high and put his head forward and down, pecking savagely at the keys of the typewriter with the first fingers of both hands very much as a hen pecks at the worms or grain of corn in a dunghill and making the machine rattle at every stroke.

"Busy, Mr. Brooke?" asked d.i.c.k. "Want some items?"

"Yes, of course," said the other, never stopping at his savage attack on the typewriter. "I am doing something about the robbery. Nothing new, I suppose?"

"Why, yes, I think there is," laughed d.i.c.k. "Have you heard----"

"What?" asked the editor sharply, looking up at the two boys. "I've heard lots of things and it's hard to tell just what's true and what isn't. What have you got, Percival?"

"Why don't you use all your fingers on your machine?" asked Jack, before d.i.c.k could answer.

"What's that?" snapped the editor quickly, fixing his eyes on the questioner. "Why don't I use all my fingers? Because it's quicker to use two, that's why."

"Oh, no it is not," with a quiet smile. "Let me show you. What is this?

Something about the robbery? Let me add a few lines. It is news."

Jack spoke with a quiet air that evidently had its effect on the nervous little man pecking away at the machine with two fat fingers and he moved his chair to one side a little so as to make room, but apparently unwilling to believe that he could be taught anything.

Jack shifted the paper a line or two and then, standing over the machine, set to work, operating rapidly and writing as he thought.

He not only used all his fingers but did the s.p.a.cing with his thumbs and wrote so rapidly that d.i.c.k thought he was copying and not writing off-hand.

What he wrote was a brief account of the finding of the rubber bag containing the missing cash box near the bridge at the upper station, not mentioning himself by name, however, nor even saying that the property had been found by one of the Hilltop boys.

When he had finished the editor looked at the paper and muttered:

"H'm! not an error! Well, you are certainly an expert operator and have taught me something but I could never write like that. Force of habit, I suppose."

"Where did you ever learn to use a typewriter, Jack?" asked d.i.c.k in admiration. "Why, you show me some new accomplishment every day."

"Oh, I have used one for some time. I have done work for the lawyers in our town. I have made a good deal of money that way."

"He gets along faster with all his fingers than you do, playing a sort of crazy jig with your two first fingers, Mr. Brooke," laughed d.i.c.k, uproariously. "I have seen other fellows play the machine like that and thought it was the only way, but now I see that it is not."

"You have put it very concisely," said the editor. "By the way, who was the person who found the money?"

"That was Jack himself," said d.i.c.k. "I was there just afterward and took the thing up to the Academy in my car. Jack is a modest fellow and you could not get him to say anything about himself."

"Very well put," said the editor. "What do you think about the political situation? I want a leader on it but hardly feel equal to it."

"Write him an editorial, Jack," laughed d.i.c.k. "How much do you pay for good articles, Mr. Brooke?"

"H'm! the News is not equipped for paying very much for anything,"

replied the other, pecking at the machine, "but if I could get a really good article on the situation at present or anything, the farming outlook, for instance, I would be willing to pay something for it."

"I can tell you what I think," said Jack, quietly, "and furnish you with articles on different subjects. I would like to earn all the money I can as I am paying for my education out of my own pocket."

"H'm! very commendable spirit," snapped the other. "Is that your case, Mr. Percival?"

"No, I cannot say that it is. However, I am anxious to see how Jack makes out as a writer of editorials. Let Mr. John Sheldon have your desk for a few minutes, Mr. Brooke."

"It won't be long," said Jack, blushing. "Only a few sentences but it is just what I think."

He sat at the typewriter and wrote rapidly for a few minutes, during which time both Percival and Mr. Brooke remained perfectly quiet.

When he had finished, Jack took the paper from the machine and handed it to the editor, saying:

"There, that is my opinion of the situation. You may not agree with it but that is how I think."

The editor read over the article carefully and then said with more spirit than he had yet betrayed:

"It is the thing in a nutsh.e.l.l. It is tersely put and carries conviction with every sentence. If it had been any longer or any shorter it would have failed of its purpose. I could not express myself any better if I wrote a column. It will go in just as it is and whenever I want an editorial written I shall call upon you."

"May I read it?" asked Percival.

The editor pa.s.sed the sheet over to the boy who read it most carefully and then said:

"Great, my boy! We have long wanted a good editor for our Academy paper and the position is yours. If I say so every boy in Hilltop will agree with me, so it is settled."

CHAPTER X

AN INTERVIEW IN THE WOODS

d.i.c.k Percival was as good as his word and lost no time in telling the Hilltop boys that he had found an ideal editor for the monthly magazine conducted in the interests of the Academy and contributed to by the brightest minds among them.

The majority agreed that Jack would make a better editor but there were some who opposed this choice, not openly but in a sneering, underhand way that was harder to combat than if they had put on an att.i.tude of bold defiance.

"You don't want a mere clerk for an editor," said Peter Herring to a number of his cronies. "If we did we could hire a six-dollar-a-week typewriter girl to do the work. Any one can work a machine with a little practice but it takes brains to run a high-cla.s.s magazine like ours."

"How much do you contribute to it, Pete?" asked Merritt, with a half laugh.

"Well, I contribute to the expense of the publication and I am not going to have my money wasted," retorted the other angrily.

"So do all the boys contribute. You don't have to pat yourself on the back for that."

"Well, do you want this upstart to be editor?" snarled Herring, annoyed at these interruptions and yet not wishing to pick a quarrel with one who was useful to him at times.

"No, of course I don't but you don't need to make a fool of yourself for all that. You are no better than the rest of us."

"I don't say I am and I don't make a fool of myself. What is the matter with you anyhow?"

"Never mind bickering, you two," said one of the group. "What we want to get at is to keep Sheldon out of the paper, isn't it?"