This story is written on a bet. Too, I don't especially fear the consequences because no one shall ever know the author of this masterpiece except the man that I have the bet with.

On a dark November night several years ago I was coming from Canal St. to Washington Avenue in downtown Charleston, W. Va. It was Wednesday night and the workers along Canal St. were broke, which means that they were sober too, so the night, though a da rk and very cold one, was unusually quiet.

I was rated down at the "Weekly Bee" as a columnist, but my fate was like that of every other weekly newspaper man and I found myself selling ads, delivering papers and even keeping the press room clean. I did not have a complaint to make however, becau se the owner of the plan set his own type, covered the court news and wrote the editorials, taking Saturday afternoons off to haul bundles of papers down to the city post office for late mailing.

Well, on this night I was looking for something to fill up about 36 inches of blank copy. The boss was sick of poetry; the readers were fed up on my "low down" and I had "lifted" just about as many ideas as the law allows in West Va. Just a few seconds after the Downer building clock struck 11 P.M., I heard a great noise in the South Street direction. It might have been a lynching or a murder, surely a fight I thought because the sound of a large number of excited voices could be heard way up on Canal St. Breaking into a run, I took Hogan's Alley and arrived there a few minutes later to see the cops haul away a soap box orator and the material for a good sketch. I decided to stay on South St. until I reached the "Bee" off ice. I had decided in just that time to set type or sell papers; I was through with the outside.

And horrors of horrors, right before my eyes I saw the open door of "Little Ike", the tailor, and his prostrate form with a long red streak from his neck to his waist. My God, someone had butchered the man! I rushed to a phone and called the "Bee" and told Mr. Winters about my "find"; then I called the police station. What a story! What a reporter! A real murder! A front page murder! I returned to poor old Ike's shop to met an angry little man, cursing for all he was wroth and to face a sneering g roup of Charleston police.

Ike hadn't been murdered. He was just drunk and those red streaks - just his red underwear glittering under the street light. And Mr. Winters? Oh yes he kept the press open until 5 A.M. waiting for my story, and me - well I was tired of the West anywa y so I came home.