Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/55

 "Nah, I won't," said the boy, sullenly, "I'll t'row up me job, foist. I got to go home."

"You can throw up your job if you want to, but you can't go home till the paper goes to press. Run on down to the end of the room where you belong."

But Stone followed after him.

"John," he said to the head boy by the gate, "no boy can get out of this office to-night on any excuse till after we go to press—not even on errands, without my permission. Understand?"

John said, "Yes, sir," and was excited. So were all the other boys. The very buzzing of the electric fans was abnormal to-night. There was suppressed excitement in the scurrying cockroaches when the reporters opened their desk-drawers. Stone returned to the other end of the room.

"That youngster," he said to Haskill, "is the one we are after. I've thought so all along."

"Then why didn't you drop him long ago?"

"There would be another here inside of