Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/83

 "They are both out, sir."

"Thank God!" whispered the reporter, and ran down the steps again, two at a time. That was poor journalism.

But he was a cub reporter, and he had much to learn about the meaning of the word News.

The night before he had had another lesson, a different sort of lesson.

They had sent him over on the East Side to find out about the drowning of a ten-year-old boy. It was reported on the police station returns as possibly a suicide.

The night was hot and sticky ("as humid as a wet sponge," wrote the man with the weather story), and the East Side was full of midsummer-night noises and awful smells. Thin children, with shrill voices, were playing in the streets.' Some of these showed him the way up the dark stairs to the flat where the drowned child had lived.

"He's the doctor," whispered one of them.

"Ah, come on down-stairs," called up an other.

The door was open and the neighbors were