Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/182

 the way from the telephone-closet, dashed down upon him:

"If you can't get down here before 8.30, you'd better not come at all. This is no morning paper. Don't take off your coat. Run up to the Tombs Police Court and see if you can't get something good for the first edition."

That was what the city editor said all in one breath, faster than you can read half of it, then hurried up to the desk and hammered the bell six times in rapid succession with the open palm of his hand, each stroke coming down quicker and harder than the one before it, until the last was but a dead, ringless "thump." And when Tommy or Johnny came running to the desk, the city editor snarled in his quick, tense voice:

"Here, if you boys can't answer this bell quicker, you'll all be fired. Run upstairs with this copy."

Johnny took it meekly but quickly, and ran (until out of the editor's sight) up to the composing-room, put the copy on the foreman's desk, then walked over to the inky-armed galley-boy and confided, "Maguire's