“They made a test to-night. I know where they went. I was outside the yard. They were gone from ten o’clock till ten twenty-five; were all over New York and forty miles to sea. It—”
“Grab the eleven fifty express and hustle in,” interrupted the man at the telephone. “It’s good stuff and’ll stand a couple o’ columns.”
Hanging up the receiver, the night city editor settled back in his chair, finished lighting his pipe and then, his head leaning in his clasped hands, seemed to be in a reverie. But this did not last long. While he had talked to “Stewart in Newark” three young men had hurried to his desk and laid on it stories or parts of stories on which they had been working. These reporters were now standing a few feet away awaiting further orders or dismissal for the night.
“Dick,” exclaimed the editor as he suddenly unclasped his hands, leaned forward over his desk again and shuffled the copy on it into a little bundle, “we’ll want about two and a half columns in the last edition.” As he spoke, a middle-aged man in his shirt sleeves—for the night was mid-June—leaned backward from a near-by big table at which a dozen men were busy cutting, rewriting and pasting copy, and took the little bundle of manuscript from his superior’s hands.
The waiting reporters groaned inwardly. They knew that this was probably the death warrant for their own evening’s work. Dick, the man addressed, asked nothing and made no inquiry. He knew that something big had turned up. As head copy reader the securing of this “something” was no business of his. Nor did the nature of it stir his calloused curiosity. His orders were to save two and a half columns of space and this he would do. When the story came, he and his assistants would see that it was two and a half columns long and no more.
But this was not the attitude of the three reporters yet waiting near the editor’s desk. This man was no longer in a reverie. In those few minutes he had “blocked out” his big story; he already saw it in print and, unlike Dick, he was now ready to go after it.
“Anything more, Mr. Latimer?” asked one of the reporters eagerly, for each of them had now scented a “beat” and all, forgetting the probable fate of their earlier evening’s work, were eager to be in on it.
Mr. Latimer arose and without reply hurried away in the direction of the night editor’s desk. When he returned, his pipe now sputtering viciously, he called: “Dick, make that two columns.” Then he turned toward the still lingering reporters. They moved to his desk, each trying to attract special attention.
“Chambers,” said Mr. Latimer to the youngest of the trio, “get Governor’s island on the phone and see if they’ll put you on Colonel Fred Grant’s wire. If you can’t raise him by phone go down to the Ship News office and have the boys take you over in the boat. We want a good talk with him on this idea: What military prestige will it give the country that is the first to perfect an airship that can travel two hundred miles an hour—an aeroplane that can actually carry men and bombs? Point out that this means across the Atlantic in fifteen hours. Make him talk new stuff, practical, and cut out the Jules Verne patter.”
Chambers, young and inexperienced, hurried away without a question, knowing well enough that this interview was to fit into another story and that it was his business to get it, and the earlier the better.