“Yes, I did,” replied Larry firmly. “I started down the hall with it as soon as Mr. Emberg gave it to me. You stood near the tube with some other copy and you said you’d send mine up for me.”  
“How about that, Peter?” asked Mr. Emberg.
 
“I—I don’t remember anything about it,” said Peter. “I sent up my own copy; that’s all I’m supposed to do.”
 
“No, it is not,” said the city editor. “You are supposed to do what we are all doing here, work for the interests of the paper, no matter in what way. Larry did wrong if he let anyone else take any copy that was intrusted to him. Never do it again, Larry. When you get copy put it in the tube yourself. Then you will be sure it goes upstairs.”
 
“But he asked me for it,” said the new boy, feeling quite badly over the matter.
 
“No matter if he did.”
 
“I didn’t do it. He’s just tryin’ to get out of it,” spoke Peter.
 
63 “We’ll soon see who’s to blame,” came from the city editor. “You boys come with me.”
 
Secure in the sense that he was right, Larry followed. As for Peter he would a good deal rather not have gone, only he dared not disobey. Up to the composing room Mr. Emberg led the two boys. There he asked the boy whose duty it was to take copy from the tubes whether he had received any on yellow paper, for it was on sheets of that hue that the missing story was written.
 
“No yellow copy came up this afternoon,” said the tube boy. “The last batch I took out was a story about the new monument, and that was all.”
 
“That’s the copy you took, Peter, about the same time I sent the story about Alderman Murphy up,” said Mr. Emberg.
 
“I don’t know nothin’ about no yellow copy,” said Peter sullenly.
 
“I’ll inquire in the copy room downstairs,” said the city editor. With the boys following him, he went to the apartment where the pipe was located, in which the copy was sent upstairs. It was the duty of one boy to remain here all the while the paper was going to press to see that the machinery was in order.
 
“Who sent up the last copy, Dudley?” asked Mr. Emberg.
 
“Peter Manton,” replied Dudley. “There was some other fellow that ran in the last minute, but64 Peter took the copy from him and said he’d send it up.”
 
“What kind of copy was it?” asked the city editor.
 
“On red—no—it was on yellow paper,” replied Dudley.
 
“And did you see Peter put it in the pipe?” asked Mr. Emberg.
 
“No, sir. I didn’t look at him closely. I had to turn on a little more compressed air then, and I was too busy to take much notice.”
 
“Peter, you never sent that copy up!” exclaimed the city editor suddenly, turning to the sulking office boy. “You are up to some trick. Tell me what you did with it.”
 
“I didn’t——” began Peter.
 
But Mr. Emberg, with a quick motion, leaned forward and tore open Peter’s coat. Out on the floor tumbled a number of yellow sheets of paper. Mr. Emberg picked some of them up.
 
“There’s the missing copy,” he said. “Peter, you can go downstairs, get what money is coming to you, and go. We don’t want you here any more.”
 
“All right,” growled Peter sullenly.
 
He turned to leave. As he passed Larry he muttered in a low turn:
 
“This is all your fault. Wait until I get a chance! I’ll pay you back all right, all right!”
 
Then, before Larry could answer, Peter shuffled65 down the hall. And that was the end of Peter on the Leader, though it was by no means the last Larry saw of him.
 
Thus the first day of Larry’s life on a big newspaper came to a close and it was with considerable pride that he started for home. He felt he had done well, though he had made one or two mistakes. He was a little worried about what pay he was going to get, and he had a little fear lest he might be paid nothing while learning.
 
His fears were set at rest, however, when, as he was going out of the door, Mr. Emberg called to him.
 
“Well, Larry, how do you like it?”
 
“First-rate,” said Larry heartily.
 
“I forgot to tell you about your money,” the city editor went on. “You will get five dollars a week to start, and, as you improve, you will be paid more. Perhaps you’ll become a reporter some day.”
 
“I’d like to, but I’m afraid I never can,” said the boy wistfully.
 
“Why not?”
 
“I haven’t a good enough education.”
 
“It doesn’t always take education to make a good reporter,” said Mr. Emberg kindly. “Some of our best men would never tak............