Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/187

 and send 'em down by a messenger!" Then he rang off, dashed out of the telephone-closet, tearing up the notes he had tried to take, hurried up, scowling, to the desk, where he began ringing his bell again and calling to one of the boys for a certain set of proofs, and sent two men out on assignments while waiting for the proofs to come.

A little later Henderson, the copy-reader, who was handling Murdock's murder story, wrote a head-line for it with twelve letters when, in that style of head, there were but eleven spaces, as everyone in the office should know, as Maguire reminded him, and also told him what he thought of him for such a blunder.

Then the new reporter, who had been sent down to Cortlandt Street Ferry a half hour before to find out about the collision of a yacht with a ferry-boat in the fog, ran up to the desk with an air of great importance and began to inform Maguire that "several women fainted, children screamed, a big-crowd gathered," etc., as usual.

The city editor, who had heard details of that sort all his newspaper life, and who