Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/44

 to send out on one of these stories. Most of the men were still scattered about over the town and adjacent country on assignments; those in the office were all, except one of the new reporters, busily writing, with coats off and the incandescent lights gleaming on shirt-sleeves and copy paper.

Just then a man entered the room in a hurry. Stone turned to the assistant night city editor. "Haskill," he said, "who's that sitting down in Woods's old place?" One cannot have the best eyesight and the best copy-reading ability in town at the same time.

"Why, it's Billy himself," said Haskill.

"I thought so," said Stone; "what's he doing here?"

"Lord knows," said Haskill, running his pencil through a half page of some poor space-grabber's copy. "Guess he's going to write a note to leave for someone."

Stone called up Linton, the cub, handed him the Head-quarters report, said, "Hurry," and bent over the Senator Platt interview he was "reading" for the first page.

It was not good Park Row form for a