u been doing?"

"Reading newspapers."

"No! Reading--That's rather surprising. All of them?"

"All that I could manage."

"Some were so bad that you couldn't worry through them, eh?" asked the
other with appreciation.

"Not that. But I didn't know the foreign languages except French, and
Spanish, and a little Italian."

"The foreign-language press, too. Remarkable!" murmured the other. "Do
you mind telling me what your idea was?"

"It was simple enough. As I wanted to get on a newspaper, I thought I
ought to find out what newspapers were made of."

"Simple, as you say. Beautifully simple! So you've devised for yourself
the little job of perfecting yourself in every department of journalism;
politics, finances, criminal, sports, society; all of them, eh?"

"No; not all," replied Banneker.

"Not? What have you left out?"

"Society news" was the answer, delivered less promptly than the other
replies.

Bestowing a twinkle of mingled amusement and conjecture upon the
applicant's clothing, Mr. Gordon said:

"You don't approve of our social records? Or you're not interested? Or
why is it that you neglect this popular branch?"

"Personal reasons."

This reply, which took the managing editor somewhat aback, was accurate
if not explanatory. Miss Van Arsdale's commentaries upon Gardner and his
quest had inspired Banneker with a contemptuous distaste for this type
of journalism. But chiefly he had shunned the society columns from dread
of finding there some mention of her who had been Io Welland. He was
resolved to conquer and evict that memory; he would not consciously put
himself in the way of anything that recalled it.

"Hum! And this notion of making an intensive study of the papers; was
that original with you?"

"Well, no, not entirely. I got it from a man who made himself a bank
president in seven years."

"Yes? How did he do that?"

"He started by reading everything he could find about money and coinage
and stocks and bonds and other financial paper. He told me that it was
incredible the things that financial experts didn't know about their own
business--the deep-down things--and that he guessed it was so with any
business. He got on top by really knowing the things that everybody was
supposed to know."

"A sound theory, I dare say. Most financiers aren't so revealing."

"He and I were padding the hoof together. We were both hoboes then."

The managing editor looked up, alert, from his knuckle-ta