"But I didn't know he'd blow up like that. The other story he did from here seemed all right."
"Yes, but it wasn't news. I think Pat can write but somebody's got to stand over him and tell him what news is. The one he sent might have been all right for an editorial page feature though it was a little esoteric. What do you suppose 'gigglegold' means or is that something the operator did?"
"I don't know what it means but it's a word James Joyce uses in 'Ulysses.'"
"I'd forgotten," said Twice. "Of course. I was trying to place it. Great book, 'Ulysses,' never should have been suppressed. But you couldn't use any of it on the sporting page."
"Was it all like that?"
"Pretty much. It was about this Daredevil Oliver doing a high dive of a hundred and five feet into four feet of water. And there were only nine people there to watch him and how ironic it would have been if he'd broken his neck. And then some more about Eugene O'Neill and the tragic drama in America. Jack Dempsey or Larry Williams or the fight never got mentioned at all."
Pat came in without knocking. He was flushed and angry. "Mr. Twice," he said, "that story in the Bulletin signed 'Peter Neale' wasn't the story I sent. I wouldn't have written anything like that."
"I know it," said Twice, "that's why I wrote it."
"Didn't you go down to see the workout?" asked Peter.
"Of course I did. I didn't stay all through it. I waited until Jack Dempsey knocked that old cow Larry Williams down for the third time and then I got bored and went out."