“But I didn’t write it,” protested Tim.
“Don’t you see,” Chub was explaining the situation in an aside to Joan, “that’s an awful thing to say about a man, especially one running for governor. It means he set the building on fire to get rid of it, and that’s against the law.”
“But he didn’t,” reasoned Joan. “The fireman himself said it was defective wiring, just what Tim said in the beginning of the story.”
“It couldn’t be from another story, I tell you,” Mr. Nixon was shouting at Tim, “because that’s the only fire story we had in the paper to-day.”
Suddenly Joan remembered that Mr. Johnson had said to come to him the next time anything suspicious happened.
She dashed across the room to the telephone booth and dived into the smoke-choked, dim little place, for she did not bother to snap on the swinging light. She lifted the receiver and called Mr. Johnson’s number. She had memorized it for just such an emergency.
“Mistah Johnson not heah,” the voice of a colored maid told her. “He’s gone to Cincinnati foah a few days.”
Then she’d have to work alone. The first thing to do was to get hold of Tim’s copy and see whether that final paragraph was there—perhaps the printer had picked it up from some other story—perhaps something left over from the day before. She wasn’t sure, but it might have happened, somehow.
When she came out of the phone booth, Mr. Nixon was still talking in his loudest tones. “We’ve had just about enough of this sort of thing going on here. Uncle or no uncle, this is too much!”
Tim was being fired! Joan had never seen any one get fired before, and had never dreamed it was ever done publicly and so loud as this. Poor Tim! There wouldn’t be any college for him now, if he lost the job. Summer jobs were scarce in Plainfield. She had to help him!