Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/129

 stuff out of this," he had said, without glancing it over; "whip it into shape, old man, and make the very best of it. There should be a lot of human interest and pathos in it."

He noticed that Hunt had dropped his blue pencil and was leaning back in his chair reading the copy with a peculiar expression on his tired young face. He glanced up at the city editor as the latter stopped by his desk, and said slowly:—

"Rewrite this story? I guess not. It's one of the best things I 've ever handled. It's got all the local color there is. It's got a tear in every line of it—and, by Jove, it's written by Mrs. Ogilvie!"

"What did I tell you?" said Herforth, who had come up and was listening to the conversation. He took several pages of the copy from Hunt's unresisting hand, and glanced over them, his lips puckering for a whistle as he read. His comment, as he handed them back, defined the situation tersely, and in a way established Mrs. Ogilvie's status in the office.

"That is n't local color," he said firmly; "that's soul!"