Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/53

 as if in a great hurry for something. Harwood was standing by the telephone-box trying to look as if he had never thought of Billy Woods. But Stone calmly turned back and walked across to Woods's desk.

There lay some pages of finely written copy. His experienced eye skimmed over a paragraph. It made him lust for the rest. It was risky, but he reached over, whisked up the closely written sheets, all but the last one, and hurried up to the desk with them just as Woods put down the glass, emitting a wet-lipped "Ah!" and started back, wiping his hand on his trousers. As he passed Haskill he was humming a little, tuneless tune. He sat down, ran his hand through his hair a moment, then, leaning over, began to write rapidly again, putting the next finished page on top of the one sheet left as unquestioningly as a hen goes to laying over one nest egg.

Meanwhile, Stone, reading the copy as rapidly as he alone could, hastily scrawled (Nonp. Double lead—Rush) across the first page and sent it up to the composing-room, where the foreman, dividing it into several