here goes. I wish I'd done as Mr. Emberg
said and let the Retto matter drop. But it seemed too good to lose
sight of."

He soon had the _Leader_ office on the wire, and, a few seconds
later, was talking to Mr. Emberg. He was rather surprised at what
the city editor said.

"What's the matter with you, Larry?" was the inquiry that came
through the telephone. "We've been waiting for you. Have you seen
the _Scorcher_?"

"No. Why?" asked Larry, an uneasy feeling coming over him. There
seemed an atmosphere of "beat" about him, and he was afraid of Mr.
Emberg's next words.

"Why, they've got a big story about Mr. Potter being home," went on
the city editor. "They say he is concealed in the house, and has
been ever since the scare."

"That's not true!" replied Larry. "I was at the house this morning,
and he wasn't home. I've been all around the steamer piers and got
no trace of him. I just left his daughter, and she would know if he
had been home all this while."

"Well, they've got the story," repeated Mr. Emberg, with the
insistence that city editors sometimes use when they fear their
reporters have been beaten. "I sent Harvey up to the house in a
hurry to make inquiries. The _Scorcher_ got out an extra. Where have
you been?"

"I just finished the tour of the docks."

"Well, you'd better go up to the house and make sure. It looks
queer."

"I'll bet that story came from Sullivan," said Larry. "He's sore on
us, and would do anything to get even. He wants to find Mr. Potter,
you know."

"I hope you're right," and Mr. Emberg's voice was not as cordial as
it usually was. "Let me hear from you soon again. I'll have one of
the men fix up something for the first edition. You tell him about
the inquiries made of the ship captains."

Larry's heart was like lead. To have worked so hard, and then to
have another paper come out with a "scare" story about Mr. Potter's
return, was discouraging.

"That story's a fake," he decided, as he prepared to telephone in
the result of his morning's work. "I'll prove it is, too, and make
them take back-water."

Larry's story of the trip to the steamship offices was not very
interesting reading, for it was but a record of failure. He realized
that, but there was nothing else to print and the paper had to have
something. It was not Larry's fault, for even a reporter on a
special assignment cannot provide fresh and startling news every
day, though all newspaper men try hard enough fo