“Newark?” asked Mr. Latimer. “Is that Nathan?”
“Mr. Nathan’s out eatin’ supper,” replied a juvenile voice.
“Go get him. Tell him this. Ready? Put down J. W. Atkinson. Got it? J. W. Atkinson, president American Aeroplane Company. Tell Nathan to see Mr. Atkinson at his home and find where Ned Napier and Alan Hope can be found. Put the names down: Ned Napier and Alan Hope.”
“I know ’em,” interrupted the youthful voice. “Them’s the Airship Boys.”
“Tell Nathan not to leave Mr. Atkinson until he learns where those boys are stopping: where they are in Newark. Got it?”
These events had taken place within fifteen minutes. At ten minutes after eleven Mr. Latimer again put the Newark story aside temporarily and gave all his time to rounding up his part of the next edition. At eleven thirty o’clock Glidden, who was to provide the material for a general “lead” to the big “beat”—none of the details of which he even knew, turned in five hundred words. Mr. Latimer paused in his other work and glanced hastily at the pages. Then he looked at the clock, leaned back in his chair and read each page.
“Good stuff,” he announced without even a smile as he finished. “That’s the idea; just what I wanted. Stewart is coming in from Newark with the story a quarter after twelve. Get your supper and be back by that time. I want you to help him shape up his stuff. Chambers and Winton will have ‘adds’ to the story.”
A quarter of an hour later Winton reported with his sketch of the Airship Boys. His superior did not read the matter—he was sure enough of Winton—but spiked it with Glidden’s copy.
“No pictures,” explained the reporter, “except one in the Scientific American of last July showing working drawings of a steel monoplane—the one they used in the New York-Chicago flight.”
“Get it and take it to the picture man. Tell him to make a two-column cut of it. No pictures of the young men?”