Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/185

 chewing the rag again." That was the way the day began, a little after eight o'clock.

It usually began in some such way. But this one was not to end as usual.

Maguire had no business to be so sarcastic with Murdock for being a few minutes late, especially as Murdock was usually one of the first men down in the morning, and Maguire knew it. So a few minutes later when he turned to Brown, one of the other reporters, he said, in a very gentle tone, as if asking a great favor of him:

"Say, Brown, take that story off the 'phone for me, will you please?—'bout a bull that's broken loose on the way to a slaughter-house uptown—been terrorizing people in Fifty-ninth Street, near the river—make half a column of it—vivid and exciting; you know how we want it." Brown hurried into the telephone-closet saying, "Yes, sir."

That was very pleasant for Brown, but did not sooth Murdock, who, by this time, was several blocks away, hurrying up Centre Street. However, he did not need much