The editor was interested at once.  “Tell me what your experiences have been,” he said, and Archie began, and told him his whole story; how he had left home to win fame and fortune, and how he had worked on the farm for a week with Farmer Tinch; how he had been robbed the night he stayed with the tramps in the ancient ruins, and how he had finally reached the city.  Then he told him of the night in the lodging-house, of his dish-washing experience in the restaurant, and how he had been taken from the street by a policeman the night before, and allowed to sleep in the station-house.  When he had finished the editor had a broad grin upon his face.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed, “this is certainly rich stuff.  There’s a good story in it, I’ll be bound.”

Then, speaking to Archie, he said: 

“Just wait here a minute, my boy, and I’ll see if we can’t put some money in your way.”

He pressed a button at the side of his desk, and when a boy appeared, he told him to bring “Mr. Jones, please, or one of the other reporters.  And tell Jones to bring an artist with him.”

The reporter and the artist soon stood before the editor, who told them, with great glee, that he had a leading feature for the next evening edition of the Enterprise.  “Just talk to this boy, Jones, and see if you can’t make two good columns on the front page and two for the inside from his story.  I think it’s great, myself.  And you Cash,” he said, turning to the artist, “you make a good sketch of the boy.”

Archie could hardly believe his eyes and ears.  Just to think that he was being interviewed, and that his picture was to be in the paper.  It seemed almost too good to be true.

When the reporter had finished with him, he was taken down-stairs to the cashier’s office and given thirty dollars in bills.  “This will pay you for the interview,” said the editor, “and give you enough to fix up with.  Now, to-morrow, you come in again, and I think I can give you steady employment.”

Oh, how happy Archie was!  He went out into the street, and seemed to fairly walk on air.  Then he heard the newsboys crying, “Extra paper, read about the Enterprise’s Boy Reporter.”  And when Archie saw the paper, there on the front page was his picture, together with the story of his “startling adventures.”

CHAPTER X.

LIVING IN COMFORT AGAIN—­ FEATURED AS “THE BOY REPORTER.”

Archie often speaks of the day when he visited the newspaper office for the first time as the happiest day in all his life.  The change from despair and homesickness to the joy of being appreciated by some one was so rapid that it made his head fairly swim with the exhilaration of success.  With thirty dollars in his pocket, and the knowledge that he would have steady employment of the kind he desired on the morrow, he walked up the Bowery feeling like a prince.