"Anything big from Paris?" some one would be asking, or "What about Berlin?"... And he knew that every night they looked towards Paris, where amazing things happened, and he, Humphrey Quain, was Paris. That splendid thought thrilled him to the greatest endeavour. He was The Day's watchman in Paris, not only of all the news that happened in the capital, but of all the happenings in the whole territory of France.
A pile of cuttings from the morning's papers were on his desk. Here was a leading article on the Franco-German relations from the Echo de Paris—an important leading article, obviously inspired by the Quai D'Orsay. There was a two-column account of the Hanon case—an extraordinary murder in Lyons which English readers were following with great interest. There was a budget of "fait-divers," those astonishing events in which the fertility of the Paris journalist's imagination rises to its highest point. They supplied the "human interest." He had received a wire from London to interview a famous French actress, who was going to play in a London theatre, and that had kept him busy for the afternoon. The morning had been devoted to reading every Paris paper.
At five o'clock Dagneau arrived with the evening papers, bought from the fat old woman who kept the kiosk outside the Café Riche. He let himself into the flat with a latch-key, and appeared before Humphrey, a young man, immaculately dressed, with a light beard fringing his fat cheeks. Humphrey could never quite overcome the oddness of having a bearded man as his junior. Dagneau was only twenty-two, but he had grown a beard since he was twenty; that was how youths played at being men. Humphrey called Dagneau "the lamb."
"Hullo," he said. "Anything special?"
Dagneau's pronunciation of English was as bad as Humphrey's pronunciation of French, but in both cases the vocabulary was immense.
"They're crying 'Death of the President' on the Boulevards," said Dagneau.
Humphrey leapt up. "Great Heavens! You don't say so!" he shouted, going to the telephone.
"Be not in a hurry, mon vieux." (Though Dagneau was his assistant, they dropped all formalities between themselves.) "It is in La Presse."
"But—"
"Calm yourself. La Presse is selling in thousands. The news is printed in great black letters across the front page."