ack hair all around it and two big tufts at his ears,
his eyebrows being thick and shaggy and standing straight out from twin
caverns.

He held his shoulders high and put his head forward and down, pecking
savagely at the keys of the typewriter with the first fingers of both
hands very much as a hen pecks at the worms or grain of corn in a
dunghill and making the machine rattle at every stroke.

"Busy, Mr. Brooke?" asked Dick. "Want some items?"

"Yes, of course," said the other, never stopping at his savage attack on
the typewriter. "I am doing something about the robbery. Nothing new, I
suppose?"

"Why, yes, I think there is," laughed Dick. "Have you heard----"

"What?" asked the editor sharply, looking up at the two boys. "I've
heard lots of things and it's hard to tell just what's true and what
isn't. What have you got, Percival?"

"Why don't you use all your fingers on your machine?" asked Jack, before
Dick could answer.

"What's that?" snapped the editor quickly, fixing his eyes on the
questioner. "Why don't I use all my fingers? Because it's quicker to use
two, that's why."

"Oh, no it is not," with a quiet smile. "Let me show you. What is this?
Something about the robbery? Let me add a few lines. It is news."

Jack spoke with a quiet air that evidently had its effect on the nervous
little man pecking away at the machine with two fat fingers and he moved
his chair to one side a little so as to make room, but apparently
unwilling to believe that he could be taught anything.

Jack shifted the paper a line or two and then, standing over the
machine, set to work, operating rapidly and writing as he thought.

He not only used all his fingers but did the spacing with his thumbs and
wrote so rapidly that Dick thought he was copying and not writing
off-hand.

What he wrote was a brief account of the finding of the rubber bag
containing the missing cash box near the bridge at the upper station,
not mentioning himself by name, however, nor even saying that the
property had been found by one of the Hilltop boys.

When he had finished the editor looked at the paper and muttered:

"H'm! not an error! Well, you are certainly an expert operator and have
taught me something but I could never write like that. Force of habit, I
suppose."

"Where did you ever learn to use a typewriter, Jack?" asked Dick in
admiration. "Why, you show me some new accomplishment every day."

"Oh, I have used one for some time. I ha