Page:Episodes-before-thirty.djvu/112

Rh

a new "bum reporter," however, I had a hectic life, but rapidly made friends with the other men, and a mutual loathing of the work brought us easily together. Friday was pay-day; by Wednesday everybody was trying to borrow money—one dollar, usually—from everybody else, the debts being always faithfully repaid when the little envelopes were collected at the cashier's office downstairs.

My first week's reporting passed in a whirl of feverish excitement. Assignments of every possible kind were hurled at me. I raced and flew about. The "Britisher," the "English accent," were a source of amusement to the staff, but there was no ill-nature. Cooper seemed to like me; he chuckled; he even gave me hints. "Well, Mr. Britisher, did you get it this time?" Few of my first efforts were used, the flimsy report being printed instead, but a divorce case in special sessions, and interviews with the principals in it, brought me into notice, the story being put in the front page of the first edition. When I came down on the following Monday, McCloy whipped up to me like a steel spring released. "You can cover the Tombs this morning," he rattled. "Anything big must be in by ten at the latest. Use judgment and pick out the best stories. Don't let anyone get a beat on you."

He flashed away, and I tore down to the Tombs Police Court.

The Tombs—I can smell to-day its peculiar mixture of extremely dirty humanity, cheap scent, very old clothes, Chinese opium, stale liquor, iodoform, and a tinge of nameless disinfectant. In winter the hot-air which was the means of heating the court whose windows were never opened, and in summer the stifling, humid atmosphere, to say nothing of the added flavour of acid perspiration, were Rh