[Illustration: IT WAS THE LAST SHOT. AS HE FIRED IT LARRY LEAPED TO ONE
SIDE TO ESCAPE THE LION’S CLAWS.]
LARRY DEXTER,
REPORTER
OR
STRANGE ADVENTURES IN A
GREAT CITY
BY
HOWARD R. GARIS
AUTHOR OF “FROM OFFICE BOY TO REPORTER,” “THE ISLE OF BLACK FIRE,” “THE
WHITE CRYSTALS,” ETC., ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
New York
GROSSET & DUNLAP
Publishers
Copyright, 1907, by
CHATTERTON-PECK CO.
_Larry Dexter, the Young Reporter_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A Reporter’s Mistake 1
II. Amateur Night 10
III. On Track of a Deal 19
IV. On a Chowder Party 28
V. Man Overboard! 36
VI. Larry in Danger 45
VII. Larry Has an Offer 53
VIII. The Agent’s Proposition 61
IX. The Big Safe-Robbery 69
X. Working up the Clew 78
XI. A Search for the Blue Hand 86
XII. Larry Meets His Old Enemy 94
XIII. In Which the Deed is Missing 102
XIV. A Strange Offer 111
XV. Sign of the Blue Hand 119
XVI. A Vain Quest 127
XVII. Setting a Trap 136
XVIII. Election Night 145
XIX. A Queer Letter 155
XX. Solving the Cipher 162
XXI. The Gas Explosion 170
XXII. A Family Heirloom 178
XXIII. Mysterious Notes 186
XXIV. The Circus 195
XXV. The Last Warning 204
XXVI. Larry’s Narrow Escape 212
XXVII. Jimmy is Missed 221
XXVIII. An Anxious Search 230
XXIX. In the Enemy’s Power 238
XXX. Jimmy Held Captive 247
XXXI. Searching for the Lost 255
XXXII. In Quest of Peter 263
XXXIII. On the Right Track 271
XXXIV. Closing In 279
XXXV. Nearing the End 288
XXXVI. The Raid 296
XXXVII. What the Old Deed Brought 304
INTRODUCTION
My Dear Boys.—Those of you who were interested in the first story of
this series, telling how Larry Dexter rose from a copy boy to become a
reporter, may desire to follow his further adventures as a newspaper
worker. Many of the occurrences told of in this volume are actual ones.
In some I participated personally. In others newspaper friends of mine
were concerned, though I have made some slight changes from what
actually happened.
The tracing of the blue-handed man, who blew open the safe by means of
nitro-glycerine, is an actual fact, having taken place in the city where
I live. He was arrested afterwards because a detective observed the
stains left by the acid on his fingers. The riot in Chinatown is similar
to several that have occurred there, and kidnappings, such as befell
Jimmy, are common enough in New York. There are few reporters,
especially on the large papers, who have not gone through as thrilling
incidents as those which happened to Larry, for, as I can vouch from
many years’ experience, a newspaper man’s life is anything but a quiet
and uneventful one.
Yours sincerely,
Howard R. Garis.
_July 1, 1907._
LARRY DEXTER,
REPORTER
CHAPTER I
A REPORTER’S MISTAKE
“Copy!”
The city editor’s voice rang out sharply, and he held in his extended
hand a bunch of paper, without lifting his eyes from the story he was
going over with a correcting pencil. There was no answer save the
clicking of half a score of typewriters, at which sat busy reporters.
“Copy!” cried the editor once more. There was a shuffle among a trio of
boys on the far side of the room.
“Copy! copy!” fairly shouted the exasperated editor, as he shook the
papers, looking up from his work towards the boys who were now advancing
together on a run. “What’s the matter with all of you? Getting deaf, or
are you tired of work? When you hear ‘Copy’ called at this time of day
you want to jump! Now all the way up to the composing room with that,
Bud. It’s got to make the first edition!”
“Yes, sir!” exclaimed Bud Nelson, head copy boy on the New York _Daily
Leader_, one of the largest afternoon papers of the metropolis, as he
raced upstairs to where the clicking type-setting machines were in noisy
operation.
“You boys must be more lively,” went on Mr. Bruce Emberg, the city
editor. “This is not a playroom nor a kindergarten. You must learn to
jump up whenever you hear the assistant city editor or myself call
‘Copy.’ I make some allowances for you boys who have not been here long,
but it must not occur again.”
The two remaining lads went back to their bench looking a little
startled, for, though Mr. Emberg was a kind man, he could be severe when
there was occasion for it.
“Did he give you a laying-out?” asked Bud, of his companions, when he
returned.
“I just guess yes,” replied Charles Anderson, the tallest of the copy
boys. “You ought to have heard him!”
“I was so busy telling you fellows about the party last night I didn’t
hear him call,” said Bud. “We’ll have to be more careful, or we’ll lose
our jobs.”
“Copy!” called the editor again, and this time the three reached the
desk almost at the same instant.
“That’s the way to do it,” remarked Mr. Emberg. “That’s what I like to
see.”
For the next few minutes there was a busy scene in the city room of the
_Leader_. Reporters were writing like mad on their typewriters, and
rushing with the loose sheets of paper over to the desk of the city
editor or his assistant. These, and two copy readers, rapidly scanned
the stories, made whatever corrections were necessary, put headings, or
“heads,” as they are called, on them, and gave them to the copy boys.
The lads ran out to the pneumatic tube that shot the copy to the
composing room, or, in case of an important story, took it upstairs
themselves so that it would receive immediate attention from the
foreman.
The boys were running to and fro, as if in training for a race,
typewriters were clicking as fast as though the operators were in a
speed contest, the editors were slashing whole pages from stories to
make them shorter, and the copy readers were doing likewise.
“Hurry up that stuff, Jones!” exclaimed the editor to one reporter.
“You’ve only got two minutes!”
“Here it is!” cried Jones, yanking the last page from his typewriter.
For two minutes there was a wilder scene of activity than ever. Then
came a comparatively quiet spell.
“That’s all we can make for the first,” remarked the editor, with
something like a breath of relief. “We did pretty well.”
The editor looked over a book that lay open in front of him on his desk.
The cover was marked “Assignments,” and it was the volume in which
memoranda of all the items that were to be gotten that day appeared. The
editor glanced down the page.
“Here, Larry!” he called to a tall, good-looking youth, who was seated
at a small desk. “Get this obituary, will you? It’s about a man over on
the West Side. He was ninety-eight years old, and belonged to a
well-known New York family.”
“Shall I get his picture?” asked Larry Dexter, as he came forward to go
out on the assignment.
“No, we haven’t time to make it to-day. Just get a brief sketch of his
life. Hurry back.”
Larry got his hat from the coat room, and left the office. He was the
newest reporter on the _Leader_. The other reporters spoke of him as the
“cub,” not meaning anything disrespectful, but only to indicate that he
was the “freshman,” the apprentice, or whatever one considers the
beginner in any line of work. Larry was a sort of fledgling at the
business, though he had been on the _Leader_ a number of months.
He began as a copy boy, just like one of the lads whom Mr. Emberg had
cautioned about being in a hurry. Larry, with his mother, his sisters,
Lucy, aged thirteen, and Mary, aged five, and his brother, James, lived
in a fairly good tenement in New York City. They had come there from the
village of Campton, New York, where Larry’s father, who had been dead a
few years, once owned a fine farm. But reverses had overtaken the
family, and some time after Mr. Dexter’s death the place was sold at
auction.
When the place had been disposed of, Mrs. Dexter desired to come to New
York to live with her sister, Mrs. Edward Ralston. But, as related in
the first volume of this series, entitled, “From Office Boy to Reporter;
or, The First Step in Journalism,” when Mrs. Dexter, with Larry and the
other children, reached the big city, they found that Mrs. Ralston’s
husband had been killed a few days before in an accident. Mrs. Ralston,
writing a hasty letter to her sister, had gone to live with other
relatives in a distant state.
But Mrs. Dexter did not receive this letter on time, in consequence of
having hastily undertaken the journey from Campton, and so did not hear
of her sister’s loss until she reached the house where Mrs. Ralston had
lived. The travelers made the best of it, however, and were cared for by
kind neighbors.
Larry soon secured work as an office, or copy, boy on the _Leader_,
through one day being able to help Harvey Newton, one of the best
reporters on the paper, at an exciting fire.
In those days Larry had trouble with Peter Manton, a rival copy boy, and
he was kidnapped by some electric cab strikers who thought he was a
reporter they wanted to pay off an old score on. The lad and Mr. Newton
were sent to report a big flood in another part of the state, where the
big dam broke, and where many persons were in danger of being drowned.
While in the flooded district Larry met his old enemy, Peter, and there
was a race between them to see who would get some copy, telling of the
flood, to the telegraph office first. Larry won, and for this good work
was promoted from an office boy to be a regular reporter. In the course
of his duties as a copy boy he once saved a valuable watch from being
stolen by pickpockets from a celebrated doctor, and the physician, in
his gratitude, operated on Larry’s sister Lucy, who suffered from a bad
spinal disease, and cured her.
This made the family feel much happier, as now Lucy could go about like
other girls, and did not have to spend many hours in a big chair.
Larry’s advancement also brought him a larger salary, so there was no
further need for Mrs. Dexter to take in sewing. They were able also to
move to a better apartment, though not far from where they had first
settled.
Larry was able to put a little money in the bank, to add to the nest-egg
of one thousand dollars which he received as a reward for finding the
Reynolds jewels, though the thieves were not apprehended.
Larry had been acting in his new position as reporter about eight months
when, on the morning that our story opens, he was sent to get the
obituary of the aged man. In this time he had learned much that he never
knew before, and which would not have come to him in his capacity as
copy boy. He had, as yet, been given only easy work, for though he had
shown “a nose for news,” as it is called, which means an ability to know
a story when it comes one’s way, Mr. Emberg felt the “cub” had better go
a bit slow.
The young reporter managed to get what information he wanted without
much trouble. He came back to the office, and wrote it up by hand, for
he had not learned yet to use a typewriter. While he was engaged on the
“obit,” as death accounts are called for brevity, he had his eyes opened
to something which stood him in good stead the rest of his life.
The first editions of other New York afternoon papers, all rivals of the
_Leader_, had come into the _Leader_ office. Mr. Emberg was glancing
over them to see if his sheet had been beaten on any stories; that is,
whether any of the other journals had stories which the _Leader_ did not
have, or better ones than those on similar subjects that appeared in the
_Leader_.
“Hello! What’s this?” the city editor exclaimed, suddenly. “Here’s a big
story of a fight at that Eleventh Ward political meeting, in the
_Scorcher_. Who covered that meeting for us?”
“I did,” replied a tall, thin youth.
“Did you have anything good in your story?” the editor asked.
“No—no, sir,” stammered the youth, as he saw the angry look on the
editor’s face.
“Why not?”
“Because there wasn’t any meeting,” replied the luckless scribe. “It
broke up in a free fight!”
“It what?” fairly roared the city editor.
“It broke up in a fight. The candidates tried to speak, but the crowd
wouldn’t let ’em. They called ’em names, and then they made a rush, and
upset the stand, and there was a free fight. I couldn’t hear any of the
speeches, so I came away.”
“You what?” asked the editor, trying to speak calmly. The room seemed
strangely quiet.
“I came away. I thought you sent me to report the political meeting, but
there wasn’t any. It broke up in a fight,” repeated the reporter.
“I thought you said you were a newspaper man,” the city editor remarked.
“I wouldn’t have hired you if I knew you had had no experience.”
“I did have some. I—I,” began the unfortunate one.
“It must have been as society scribbler on the _Punktown Monthly Pink
Tea Gazette_,” exclaimed Mr. Emberg. “Why, you don’t know enough about
the business to report a Sunday school picnic.
“If you were sent to a house to get an account of a wedding,” went on
Mr. Emberg, “and while there the house should burn down, and all the
people be killed, I suppose you would come back and say there wasn’t any
wedding, it was a fire! Would you?”
“No—no, sir.”
“Well, I guess you would! I don’t believe you’re cut out for the
newspaper business. The idea of not reporting a meeting because it broke
up in a fight! It’s enough to make—but never mind! You can go to the
cashier and get what money is coming to you. We can’t afford to have
mistakes like that occur. This is the best story in many a day. Why,
they must have had a regular riot up there, according to the _Scorcher_.
Here, Smith,” the city editor went on, turning to an older reporter,
“see what there is in this, and fix up a story,” and Mr. Emberg handed
over the article he had clipped from the rival paper. It was a bad beat
on the _Leader_.
“I hope I never make a mistake like that,” thought Larry, as he turned
in his article. “My, that was a call-down!”