Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/43

 time related to the whole staff what The Herald man had told him about the trip up the bay in the tug. He said it was only one of a series of attempts on the part of The Earth office at making Billy Woods drunk—not merely in order to get The Day beaten on the news, but to get hold of The Day's best reporter.

"And that is the only way they ever could get Billy to join their dirty sheet," somebody remarked.

"Well," said Bascom, the ancient copy-reader, sadly, "I see his finish in that pretty crowd. ... I suppose they'll hunt him up as soon as he's sober."

"That won't be for a week," said somebody else. Then each sat down before a little pile of copy and began his night's work. This was about the time most of the town was sitting down to its dinner.

At twenty minutes before eleven the Police Head-quarters man sent in by telephone a bunch of precinct returns arrests, accidents, and so on. Mr. Stone turned his glistening eye-glasses down the room over the even rows of reporters' desks to see whom