Page:Arthur Stringer - Twin Tales.djvu/140

130 "No, I want you, Louis, and I want you as quick as you can come," Gerry coolly averred.

"But why me?"

"Because you're the only ink-coolie on this Island who'd keep your word if you once promised to. So come over here in a taxi and let me unload."

Louis came, and smoked Gerry's good cigars, and listened, and remembered his promise with a true inkster's pang of regret.

"Now, the one thing that Avenue-robin can't stand, the one thing he doesn't want, in all this, is printer's ink. So it's up to us to give him what he's afraid of. It's up to us to hold a full-page Sunday story over his fat head. I want you to go right up to him as a reporter from The Star, with every detail I've given you. I want you to let him see just what it'll look like when it's unrolled, the entire unsavory story. And if he isn't sending a hurry-call in for the soft pedal before you're out of the elevator I'll buy The Star and give it to you to play with when you've got writer's