Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/99

 Usually they gave him a night assignment or two as well. So he spent his days in jail from nine until four, and his evenings in whatever part of Manhattan or Staten or Long Islands or of the wilds of the Jersey suburbs the editor decreed. As a rule, his night assignments did not amount to much in type. They were to give the cub reporter exercise and experience in approaching people and seeking news. Sometimes a five-line story, which most of you did not even see—and Linton himself had trouble to find—would cost five hours' work and as many dollars in railroad and carriage fares, not to speak of sensibilities and fatigue in mind and body. More often the young reporter looked through and through the paper, letting his coffee get cold, to find nothing printed at all.

The Tombs was horrible, but at first it was also interesting because it satisfied the natural morbid curiosity that goes with a number of better tastes in every human being. But very soon this was more than satisfied, it was glutted, and he found he could not digest it all, and the Tombs became hor-