A Woman Intervenes | Page 2

hotel, and
did my best to master the details. It was full of technicalities, and I
couldn't make it out. It required a mining expert to get the hang of their
phrases and figures, so I thought the best thing to do was to telegraph it
all straight through to New York. I knew it would cost a lot of money,
but I knew, also, you didn't mind that; and I thought, perhaps,
somebody here could make sense out of what baffled me; besides, I
wanted to get the documents out of my possession just as quickly as
possible.'
'Hem!' said the editor. 'You took no notes whatever?'
'No, I did not. I had no time. I knew the moment they missed the
documents they would have the detectives on my track. As it was, I
was arrested when I entered the telegraph-office.'

'Well, it seems to me,' said the managing editor, 'if I had once had the
papers in my hand, I should not have let them go until I had got the gist
of what was in them.'
'Oh, it's all very well for you to say so,' replied the reporter, with the
free and easy manner in which an American newspaper man talks to his
employer; 'but I can tell you, with a Canadian gaol facing a man, it is
hard to decide what is best to do. I couldn't get out of the town for three
hours, and before the end of that time they would have had my
description in the hands of every policeman in the place. They knew
well enough who took the papers, so my only hope lay in getting the
thing telegraphed through; and if that had been accomplished,
everything would have been all right. I would have gone to gaol with
pleasure if I had got the particulars through to New York.'
'Well, what are we to do now?' asked the editor.
'I'm sure I don't know. The two men will be in New York very shortly.
They sail, I understand, on the Caloric, which leaves in a week. If you
think you have a reporter who can get the particulars out of these men, I
should be very pleased to see you set him on. I tell you it isn't so easy
to discover what an Englishman doesn't want you to know.'
'Well,' said the editor, 'perhaps that's true. I will think about it. Of
course you did your best, and I appreciate your efforts; but I am sorry
you failed.'
'You are not half so sorry as I am,' said Rivers, as he picked up his big
Canadian fur coat and took his leave.
The editor did think about it. He thought for fully two minutes. Then he
dashed off a note on a sheet of paper, pulled down the little knob that
rang the District Messenger alarm, and when the uniformed boy
appeared, gave him the note, saying:
'Deliver this as quickly as you can.'
The boy disappeared, and the result of his trip was soon apparent in the

arrival of a very natty young woman in the editorial rooms. She was
dressed in a neatly-fitting tailor-made costume, and was a very pretty
girl, who looked about nineteen, but was, in reality, somewhat older.
She had large, appealing blue eyes, with a tender, trustful expression in
them, which made the ordinary man say: 'What a sweet, innocent look
that girl has!' yet, what the young woman didn't know about New York
was not worth knowing. She boasted that she could get State secrets
from dignified members of the Cabinet, and an ordinary Senator or
Congressman she looked upon as her lawful prey. That which had been
told her in the strictest confidence had often become the sensation of
the next day in the paper she represented. She wrote over a nom it
guerre, and had tried her hand at nearly everything. She had answered
advertisements, exposed rogues and swindlers, and had gone to a hotel
as chambermaid, in order to write her experiences. She had been
arrested and locked up, so that she might write a three-column account,
for the Sunday edition of the Argus, of 'How Women are Treated at
Police Headquarters.' The editor looked upon her as one of the most
valuable members of his staff, and she was paid accordingly.
She came into the room with the self-possessed air of the owner of the
building, took a seat, after nodding to the editor, and said, 'Well?'
'Look here, Jennie,' began that austere individual, 'do you wish to take a
trip to Europe?'
'That depends,' said Jennie; 'this is not just the time of year that people
go to Europe for pleasure, you know.'
'Well, this is not exactly a pleasure trip. The truth of the matter