THE CHAMPION
CHAPTER I
The devil was looking out of the window. Yet the traffic in the streets was unchecked. The cable-cars whizzed past with a clanging clamor. Great rumbling vans laden with freight alternated with carriages rolling noiselessly on rubber-tired wheels. The sidewalks were crowded with pedestrians. Men and boys, ladies and little children, boldly came and went over the neighboring crossing, although they could plainly see the devil's head poking out of a high window in the newspaper building and hear the shrill tones of the devil's voice as he discoursed to his friend within.
For in fact this was not the old Enemy of Mankind, but a small imp—commonly known as a printer's devil—who by virtue of a beguiling chirp of "Copy!" served as a means of communication between the foreman of the composing-room and the editorial staff.
"That's wher' they set her up!" he said, pointing to the composing-room in an explanatory way, and with a paw copiously smeared with ink.
There were streaks of this commodity on his face also, although his functions had no concern with it. Still the devil is not the only fiend who dabbles in printer's ink without a call.
His friend, Peter Bateman, a heavy, thickset boy, with a broad, sullen, flushed face and a lowering eye, cast a glance at the cases visible through the open door from the hall.
"Wher' do the boss do the writin' at?" he asked, in a hoarse, wheezy voice.
The devil tossed his red head. "Boss don't hev ter write none!" he retorted arrogantly. "Foreman is what we call him—bes' printer in these 'ere Newnited States!"