Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/255

 had, and that made things hum over in one corner of the Exchange for a half-hour after the opening, and spoiled a daring scheme for his host's two friends and his own friendship with his host and other friendships also, when the tale went around the Southern Society, out of which Billy now dropped altogether.

The young newspaper man was penitent, pitifully so, and bobbed his head, and agreed with all that a mutual friend said to him. "And don't you see now what an awful thing you've done, my boy?"

"Yes, yes; why didn't I look at it that way! Isn't it awful, but—my! what a good story!"

Now, this news instinct means broadly an abnormal keenness in appreciating what is contemporaneously interesting to the public—a habit of mind acquired by those who deal in news, just as various other habits of mind are acquired by those who deal in various other goods.