Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/186

 sympathy, because he was lucky enough to get a beautiful story of an Italian-quarter stabbing, which turned out to be a murder, and so proved to be worth three-quarters of a column, and that is a very good amount of space to get into the first edition of an after noon paper that is out on the street at 10.30

But Maguire, the city editor, flared up and then had remorse again half a dozen times before the first edition came out. The telephone-boy had shouted up to the desk, "Wintringer's on the 'phone, Mr. Maguire."

Wintringer was the police head-quarters man. He had a lot of small fire and accident stories of the early morning and that part of the night not covered by the morning papers.

The weather was damp, and the connection was bad. "Aw! for Heaven's sake, Wintringer," screamed Maguire, "why don't you open your mouth when you talk?" Then a moment later, "Don't yell so loud. I'm not deaf." And finally in a wail, "Oh, I can't make that out. Write your stories