The Press threw defiantly the portrait of its candidate for mayor.
“Pull the String and See it Jump!” from The Chronicle.
Behind The Press stereopticon a telephone jingled, telegraph instruments clicked, men wrote busily at a long table under a row of pendent electric lights that swayed in the draught.
A large man came in, panting. His short coat swung back under his arm-pits, away from the vast curve of his waistcoat. He had a falling moustache and a round face.
“Vere iss Vood? So!” He peered curiously into the darker room. “Vere.”
“Come along, Freiburger,” said Wood. “Pull up a chair. Well—how's your Ward? All quiet?”
Freiburger settled into a chair with the same caution.
“Oh, yes, quviet. Not shtill, but quviet.”
“What's the difference between 'still' and 'quiet'?” asked Hennion.
“Veil, it vass drunk, und someone vass punch Cahn der barber's nose, but not me.”