Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/314

 to make the unfortunate youth a permanent attraction in Park Row, the way was clearly shown to me at my switchboard through a conversation I happened to eavesdrop over the wires.

Amongst the more or less guests at the St. Moe was John Temple Manning, also a newspaper man like Tommy Brown, only different. The difference between 'em was about ten million dollars. Manning owned the Morning Malaprop and a face containing two more wrinkles than there is in any prune that's come to my notice, really. As this greedy-eyed old fool never passed the switchboard without trying to arrange things with me, I liked him the same way I like appendicitis! I understood from Tommy that I shared this distaste for Monsieur Manning with the owners of the Evening Wow, which enterprising paper allowed no day to pass without lambasting him to a fare-thee-well. Manning, who's own news columns knew no brother, had recently printed in the Morning Malaprop a sensational story about a bosom friend of the Evening Wow's proprietors, hence the bad feeling.

One day Tommy Brown breezed into the St. Moe with an excited sparkle in his eye. He waited until I'd dealt out a bevy of numbers to the customers and then he leaned over close to me.

"What d'ye know about John T. Manning, Gladys?" he asks me, mysteriously.