However, his glances and gestures were kind enough—as consoling as words. He smiled as she seized one of the damp, fresh papers. What did that smile mean? He was a puzzle.
Joan opened out the paper, and with the proofreader looking over her shoulder, she went through the whole issue, column by column.
“It isn’t in!” she cried. Tim was safe. By some miracle, the charity play story had been left out. The presses would not have to be stopped, after all. Oh, blessed relief!
Dummy had taken the paper from her limp hand, and was going through it again. Then he shook his head. Was he relieved, too? Or was he sorry that the terrible mistake hadn’t been made? Was he merely jealous of Tim’s job or was he a spy, as they thought?
Things looked suspicious, though, she thought. Mack and Dummy had been arguing about this very story. And where was the story? It seemed to have simply disappeared. She had really no facts to present to Mr. Johnson. She’d have to wait and watch some more. She and Chub had been so busy chasing that picture of Miss King, working so hard to get it that they very nearly got into hot water because they got the wrong one, while all the time something really important was brewing right under their noses here in the back room of the Journal.
Joan, hurrying out to the editorial office to tell Chub the latest details, brushed past Bossy, who was ambling into the front office with a bundle of papers on his arm. He was muttering to himself, “Quare goin’s on around heah, dat’s what I say.”
Bossy was always mumbling under his breath, and Joan paid no attention. She had had an inspiration (what she and Amy called a brain throb). Perhaps Chub in his eagerness to help Tim had realized the story was wrong and had held it from going into the paper. Chub, however, denied knowing anything about the mysterious disappearance of the charity play story. His guileless, freckled face helped corroborate his innocence. Joan felt he was telling the truth. Chub might be mischievous and full of faults, but he did not lie. He listened intently while she told him the latest developments.
When Tim came in, they had to discuss it all over again. He was relieved that the story hadn’t been printed, but he was dumbfounded that it had disappeared right off the hook. “Come on, I’m going to look over the lay of the land,” he said to Joan. “I want to get to the bottom of this. It surely looks crooked. Besides, I don’t like to lose that write-up with all my carefully phrased compliments for each and every member in the cast. I can use it whenever the play does come off.”
Dummy was still in his corner. Although the paper was out, the afternoon’s work was not over for the Journal family. No sooner was one edition out than they went to work assembling news stories and articles for the next day’s paper. Not news items, necessarily, mostly rewrites and things that had no special time value. The back office usually worked, pressmen and all, until four o’clock or after.
Tim satisfied himself that the story was not on the big hook; then he went over to the proofreader’s corner. Joan saw Dummy’s eyes upon them. “It certainly is funny how that story could vanish—” he began.