He was told what Ned had been discussing.
“It means that the publication of those pictures the next morning—pictures made at noon one day in London, printed the next morning in New York—will put a crimp in every other sheet in New York. Those are the things that give a newspaper a place in history. It’s the way one newspaper gets to be known above another,” volunteered Bob.
“How about us gettin’ a little place in history?” asked Ned as he got into his clothes. He held up his rumpled trousers. “We may get a place in history,” he went on laughing, “but it won’t be in the ‘History of Fashions.’ We’re a fine bunch to be dining at the Knickerbocker in these togs.”
“Don’t you bother about your clothes,” broke in Alan. “We’re not parading to-day. All you need worry about is that $50,000 contract.”
“And breakfast,” added Bob. “A little coffee and a cool cantaloupe’ll set you up. By the way,” he added with a new laugh, “you can get a new outfit in London—some o’ those swell Piccadilly rags.”
“I suppose you know how long we are to be in London?” interposed Alan. “An hour or less.”
“That’s all right,” persisted Bob, “buy ’em ready made. If they don’t fit that’ll be one proof we’ve been to England.”
“Well,” exclaimed Ned with another look of disgust at his grease-spotted coat, “I’m ready. Now for some breakfast. Then we’ll hurry over and have a talk with the Major. After that, we’ll meet our new friend at the Knickerbocker. Meanwhile, get your heads working. There are a lot of details to be arranged—if the Herald don’t change its mind—and we’ve got just six days in which to get things ready.”
Seated in the Breslin Hotel restaurant—the busy Broadway throng passing just outside the window—while melons, cereals and ham and eggs fell before the attacks of the three boys—each individual head began “working.”
“First and most important,” began Alan, “excepting the details of the contract of course, we’ve got to decide how we are to get away with those matrices; that is, how are we to pick ’em up without losing the time to send ’em over to Jersey or out to the suburbs? We certainly can’t make a landing at the Herald office in the city. And if we can’t do that in New York we can’t do it in London. Where do we land in London within a few minutes motor run of Fleet Street?”