“All citizens must go to Sunday School or be fined,” from The Press.
“6th Ward. Rep. Plurality, 300.”
“1st Ward. Ind. Ref. Plurality, 28.”
Whish! a rocket from the windows of The Western Advocate. And the crowd roared and shuffled.
The last of The Press windows to the left belonged to a little room off the press-room, containing a desk, a board table, and several chairs. The desk seemed only to be used as an object at which to throw articles, in order that, they might roll to the floor. There were crude piles of newspapers on it and about it, hats, a section of a stove pipe, and a backgammon board. The table looked as if it sometimes might be used to write on.
The room was supposed to be the editor's, but no one in Port Argent believed Charlie Carroll ever stayed in the same place long enough to pre-empt it. He edited The Press from all over the city, and wrote the editorials wherever he stopped to catch breath. The Press editorials were sometimes single sentences, sometimes a paragraph. More than a paragraph was supposed to mean that Carroll had ridden on a street car, and relieved the tedium of his long imprisonment.
A number of men stood at the window or stood grouped back, and watched the canvas across the street. The only light came through the door from the press-room.
Carroll put his curly head through the door, shouted something and vanished. The Press stereopticon withdrew a view of Yosmite Valley and threw on the canvas:
“Recount in the 1st Ward announced.”
The Chronicle cleared its canvas promptly and flung across the street: