“I don’t suppose you see the humorous side of this thing; but it appeals to me very strongly. See here, Harkins, this thing is becoming marked with you. It begins to look as if you had gotten into the habit of falling down on all of your assignments.”
“I do feel a bit silly about this,” began Herbert, “but you see the position I was placed in. You see it was this way--”
“No explanations are necessary,” interrupted Tomlin in his familiar, hearty tones, “explanations are not of much use anyhow. Your friends don’t expect them, and your enemies wouldn’t believe them. I’m frank to say, however, that you did just what any man with red blood in his veins would have done under the circumstances. In fact I would have acted just as you did.”
“Then you don’t feel badly over it? You don’t blame me--”
“Not at all,” interrupted his friend once more; “I only ask you to promise me that you are through with this chivalrous business, and that if you intend to stay in the newspaper profession, you will quit it right here and now, and that hereafter when you are sent out on an assignment you will cover it and write it like a sensible man. Do you promise, Herbert?”
Thus ended the episode of the attempted robbery. Two days later Herbert started out early in the morning in order to make a tour of the hospitals for the purpose of finding some material for special articles. The first institution he visited was the Samaritan Hospital, with whose superintendent he was on terms of intimacy.
“Got anything to-day?” he said to that official.
“Not much,” was the yawning reply, “at least not much out of the ordinary. I don’t think we’ve anything here that you would care for.”
“No; but we have a queer sort of fellow here who was shot last night while trying to break into a house up-town.”
“Is that so?” remarked Herbert carelessly. “I don’t suppose there’s anything unusual in the case?”
“No, I don’t think so,” was the rejoinder. “Here’s his name,” and the superintendent pushed the big register over in the direction of Herbert.
The young man looked at the open page carelessly, and then gave a sudden start.
The name on the book was decidedly familiar. It was that of Harry Adler. Instantly he became all attention.