Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/120

 As the months passed, she had quietly taken her place as one of the most indefatigable workers on the staff,—alert, enthusiastic, and absolutely reliable. In the working up of a story she knew no such word as fail. She invariably secured her facts—and, having them, she set them forth in a fine, large hand and schoolgirl style which drew groans of anguish from her newspaper associates. There was not a touch of heart or sympathy in her work. As Herforth put it, "She handled the most tragic themes in a manner that was positively gay." "She's a charming little woman," added Herforth, who was the "star"  reporter and inclined to the analytic, "but, hang it all, I don't believe she has any soul. Nobody could have and write the stuff she turns out. If something would happen to shake her up a bit and knock into her some sense of what life is, I believe she'd develop wonderfully."

The others lounging around the city room laughed at his vehemence. They shared his liking for the "little woman," especially since they had learned of the invalid husband