positive that someone might not have been involved with Jed Myers, and it seemed to Ted he was afraid it might come out at the court hearing. Ted felt it time to draw the interview to a close.
“Thank you, Mr. Prentice. I think that gives me everything I need, and I appreciate your giving me so much of your time.”
“Not at all, Ted. I’m not asking for favors, but just give us a fair break in your story. Phone from here if you want to, and I’ve got a portable typewriter over by that table you’re welcome to use. I’m going out and will leave you to it.”
“I have a friend waiting in the lobby who drove me down. All right if he comes up?”
“Sure. By the way, Ted, if you’re still here when I get back, perhaps we could drive up to Forestdale together. It’ll be too early for lunch, but we could stop somewhere along the road.”
“That would be fine, Mr. Prentice. I’ll wait as long as I can.”
“This is all right,” Nelson remarked after he joined Ted, “but it’s not the best suite in the place, and Mr. Prentice wasn’t dressed very well. It doesn’t look like he’s getting rich on union money.”
“No, he struck me as a very honest person, but of course he doesn’t tell everything he knows. I don’t think he’d concede one inch, if he thought he was right. I hope we have lunch together. I’d like to get a little stronger impression of him.”
“What goes, Ted? You sound like you expected to stay on the story. We’re going back to college, remember?”
“That’s right. Well, maybe Mr. Dobson will let me cover the court hearing tomorrow morning. But right now I want to get what he said down on paper, before I lose it.”
For nearly an hour the keys clacked rhythmically. Of course it wasn’t possible for Ted to say that there was going to be a strike, which was really only his opinion, but the reader was certain to get the idea that a strike was a strong possibility. Ted supposed that Mr. Dobson would probably put a headline over the story reading: TRUCKING STRIKE LOOMS, or something like that.
When Ted felt satisfied he’d done the best he could in the time he had, he put through a collect call to the Town Crier office. Miss Monroe answered.
“Oh, Ted. Wait till I put on my earphones, and I’ll type the story as you read it. Mr. Dobson’s listening on the other phone. He wants to hear it, too.”
“All right, Ted, go ahead,” said Mr. Dobson’s voice.
Ted read his story slowly enough for Miss Monroe to copy it. When he had finished, Mr. Dobson had a few questions. Fortunately Ted was able to give him the additional information he wanted.
Ted knew that the editor was pleased, though his voice was crisp. They were generally rushed on deadline morning, but after noon they could all relax a little.
“Thanks, Ted,” the editor commended him. “It’s a good job well done. There’s no great hurry getting back, but if you’re here before two, Miss Monroe will be able to get to the bank before it closes.”
They hung up, and Ted felt suddenly relieved and almost carefree.
3. The Long Road Home
“WELL, WHAT DO WE DO NOW?” ASKED NELSON impatiently.
“Wait for Mr. Prentice, if we can. I don’t have to get back till two, so we can wait till eleven or so.”
“Your story was written from the standpoint of the labor union, Ted. You think that’s fair?”
“The paper will carry an interview with Mr. Abbott, too. He’s the largest of the private owners. Mr. Dobson took care of that part of it.”
“Know something?” said Nelson suddenly. “If there is a strike and trouble develops, I’m going to keep my camera handy. Maybe this is the sort of thing I’m looking for—you know, something to enter in a contest. A nice, big, juicy riot, and me the only one on the spot with a camera.”
“Well, I hope you get out of it alive.”
“Yeah,” said Nelson gloomily.
“I wonder,” said Ted meditatively, his thoughts shooting off on a tangent, “about Mr. Prentice. He’s such a fluent talker that you get the impression he must know what he’s talking about. But I wonder about his statistics. That seems to be the key to the whole situation.”
“From what I’ve heard about statistics,” Nelson put in, “both sides quote the same figures to prove that they’re right! You can prove almost anything you want to with figures.”
“Oh, I imagine statistics are all right, as long as you know what it is you’ve got. You might put all men between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine in one group, and between the ages of thirty and thirty-nine in another group. What you’ve got to remember is that a man of twenty-nine is closer in age to a man of thirty from the other group than he is to a man of twenty in his own group.”
“But he’d be just as close to a man of twenty-eight as he would to a man of thirty,” Nelson observed.
“Yes. Well, I suppose it all depends on what you’re trying to prove. If you were going to place a man, a frog, and a stone in two groups, how would you do it?”
“You’d have to put the man and the frog in the same group, wouldn’t you?”
“That’s because the fact of being alive seems the most important thing to us. But if you were calculating the load on an airplane, you might put the man and the stone in the same group, and hardly bother with the weight of the frog.”
“Maybe it’s a little stone that only weighs as much as the frog,” said Nelson with a grin, “and so where are you?”
“I guess I’m right back wondering whether I ought to sign up for statistics or calculus next term.”
“Statistics would be more useful in journalism, wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose so, but I’d hate to by-pass calculus and find out later that it’s got something I need.”
“Why don’t you ask your friend, Mr. Halliday?” Nelson suggested. “He’d have all that right at his fingertips. And he must know what he’s talking about, or he wouldn’t be running the most successful investment business in the county.”
“You know, I just might do that. He’s always been a good friend. That time years ago when our family ran into some tough sledding and he pushed through a mortgage extension for us—well, that’s the sort of thing you never forget. I guess I’ve been kind of leaning on him for advice ever since.”
Mr. Prentice came back before eleven o’clock, saving them the problem of deciding how long to wait. He seemed glad to see them.
“Give me just five minutes more, boys, and I’ll be packed and ready to go.”
Within this time limit he emerged from his bedroom carrying two suitcases. He checked through the desk, found nothing there he had forgotten, and announced himself ready to leave. Nelson took one of the suitcases, and
