By five o’clock, men and even girls, pouring from their offices, and laborers coming from work, had all heard of it, and on the street the bold defiance created first a gasp and then a smile. Another attempt to dislodge Sam Stone was, in the light of previous efforts, a laughable thing to contemplate; and yet it was interesting.
In the office of the Bulletin it was a gleeful occasion. Nonchalant reporters sat down with that amazing front page spread out before them, studied the brutal face of Stone and chuckled cynically. Lean Doc Miller, “assistant city editor,” or rather head copy reader, lit one cigarette from the stub of another and observed, to nobody in particular but to everybody in general:
“I can see where we all contribute for a beautiful Gates Ajar floral piece for one Robert Burnit;” whereupon fat “Bugs” Roach, “handling copy” across the table from him, inquired:
“Do you suppose the new boss really has this much nerve, or is he just a damned fool?”
“Stone won’t do a thing to him!” ingratiatingly observed a “cub” reporter, laying down twelve pages of “copy” about a man who had almost been burglarized.
“Look here, you Greenleaf Whittier Squiggs,” said Doc Miller most savagely, not because he had any particular grudge against the unfortunately named G. W., but because of discipline and the custom with “cubs,” “the next time you’re sent out on a twenty-minute assignment like this, remember the number of the Bulletin, 427 Grand Street. The telephone is Central 2051, and don’t forget to report the same day. Did you get the man’s name? Uh-huh. His address? Uh-huh. Well, we don’t want the item.”
Slow and phlegmatic Jim Brown, who had been city editor on the Bulletin almost since it was the Bulletin under half a dozen changes of ownership and nearly a score of managing editors, sauntered over into Jolter’s room with a copy of the paper in his hand, and a long black stogie held by some miracle in the corner of his mouth, where it would be quite out of the road of conversation.
“Pretty good stuff,” he drawled, indicating the remarkable first page.
“The greatest circus act that was ever pulled off in the newspaper business,” asserted Jolter. “It will quadruple the present circulation of the Bulletin in a week.”
“Make or break,” assented the city editor, “with the odds in favor of the break.”